Today is my birthday, conveniently situated right before Christmas, and as is my tradition on the Advent beer calendar each year, on this day I select a “birthday” beer for myself rather than a traditional Christmastime one. Or in today’s case, a cider—specifically, a barrel aged apple wine from 2 Towns Ciderhouse here in Oregon: Pommeau.

Our Pommeau is made from locally grown traditional bittersweet cider apples, which are hand harvested and ‘sweated’ at cool temperatures. After the apples have sweetened , the fresh-pressed juice is fermented and aged with apple eau de vie. Our Pommeau is then matured in French oak barrels for one year. The result is a tremendously complex apple Pommeau that blossoms with aromas of fresh-pressed cider, dried fruit, and wood. This bottle will improve with cellaring for up to 20 years.

Pommeau is a strikingly delicious dessert wine—think apple port—with a warming and shareable 19% alcohol by volume. It’s a bottle you can enjoy now, or as the cidery notes, put away to age for a while.

And in full disclosure, 2 Towns sent me a bottle of Pommeau recently as a holiday gift, and yes, this provided inspiration for today’s Advent post. Which was fortuitous as I hadn’t been able to come up with a birthday beer pick yet this year! So I’ll be a bit selfish and say happy birthday to me!

Cheers!

Find 2 Towns Pommeau on:

• Untappd
• RateBeer
• Facebook

Image credits: 2 Towns’ Facebook page (top one slightly altered to fit)