The Brew Site
During the last week and a half before Christmas, Deschutes Brewery sent over a couple of packages which seemed a little bit like getting Christmas presents. In the first one: The 2011 edition of Hop Henge Experimental (nee Imperial) IPA. This year’s formulation is 9% ABV, and has been tweaked … Continue reading
It’s Christmas Eve and the final day of the Advent Beer Calendar! Today’s selection is Deschutes Brewery’s Jubelale, their annual Winter Warmer that is rich, malty, and spicy. In true holiday ale tradition, each year they tweak the recipe a bit and offer up a unique label commissioned by an … Continue reading
Today is my birthday, and as such the other tradition I’ve attached to this Advent Calendar (the first being the selection of Anchor Christmas Ale each year) is that I pick an entirely indulgent, not-necessarily-holiday beer for today’s selection—sort of a “vanity” pick for a big delicious beer that I … Continue reading
Every year for the Advent Beer Calendar I’ve made it a tradition to select Anchor Christmas Ale for one of the days, and this year is no exception. The revitalization of Anchor under Fritz Maytag is in many ways the start of the revitalization of the American craft beer movement, … Continue reading
Today I’ve selected the “first Strong Winter Ale” from Brewery Ommegang out of New York, Ommegang Adoration. (Is this really their first Winter Ale?) Their own description may well be my favorite of the month, something I couldn’t have come up with better myself: Ommegang Adoration, brewed in the authentic … Continue reading
New Jersey-based Flying Fish Brewing Company is interesting because it was the first microbrewery founded “virtually” in 1995—literally starting life as a web page and an idea, with the actual brewery opening in 1996. Today’s beer is their Grand Cru Winter Reserve, a 7.2% Belgian Abbey-styled ale first released in … Continue reading
Today’s beer has been Great Divide Brewing Company‘s winter ale for a decade and a half, the award-winning Hibernation Ale. An English-style Old Ale, I noted with interested that pre-2009 vintages of Hibernation were 8.1% alcohol by volume, but since 2009 this went up to 8.7%. (Usually you’d expect to … Continue reading
Today’s pick is a French beer, hailing from Brasserie Larché in north-central France: Thomas Becket Bière de Noël. (Also referred to as Le Brassin de Noël on the website.) This Christmas Beer is 6.5% alcohol by volume, and the brewery says (loosely translated): Brassin Christmas is the heir to a … Continue reading
Up in the small Washington town of Gig Harbor (the “gateway to the Olympic Peninsula”) lives 7 Seas Brewing, open a year and a half and selling their beer in cans around the Seattle and Puget Sound area. This year they released Santa’s Smokin’ Winter Warmer, a 7.5% holiday ale … Continue reading
Today’s pick comes from beer writer Stan Hieronymus, author of the recently released Brewing with Wheat and who blogs at Appellation Beer. Stan selected The Lost Abbey’s Gift of the Magi and writes: Given the amount of grief the witches’ community brought down on Lost Abbey Brewing for the label … Continue reading