Beer aficionados often zestfully look forward to seasonal and special releases from craft breweries everywhere. These innovative special blends are part of what makes the craft beer industry so great. Breweries experiment with ingredients like fruits, vegetables, spices, and varieties of hops to create beer with so much flavor and uniqueness. There are seasonal brews from Summer, Fall (including Halloween and pumpkin), Winter ales, and special Christmas blends. The Christmas beers can be difficult to find as breweries usually brew a very limited supply and they sell quickly. I wanted to put together a collection of Christmas beers that were named specifically for the Christmas holiday. I specifically did not include Winter ales. To share with you my favorite Christmas beers, here is my adaptation of a Christmas classic.
The Twelve Beers of Christmas
On the 1st day of Christmas, my true love gave to me...
Holiday Spice Lager from Lakefront Brewery, Milwaukee, WI.
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| A very special lager brewed with honey, oranges, and spices. The spices and hops balance the sweetness of the honey and malt to give this lightly hopped beer its perfect flavor. |
On the 2nd day of Christmas, my true love gave to me...
Holiday Porter from Sam Adams and the Boston Beer Co., Boston, MA.
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| A full-flavored porter with aroma of chocolate and coffee. Very smooth, lots of flavor, and very drinkable. |
On the 3rd day of Christmas, my true love gave to me...
Holiday 'Sucks' Ale from Lagunitas Brewing Co., Petaluma, CA.
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| It's called 'Sucks' because Lagunitas were unable to brew their regular seasonal brew, BrownShugga Ale. Make no mistakes about it though, this is one fine beer. This american strong ale rates a 99 out of 100 on ratebeer.com, consistent with everything Lagunitas makes. I have yet to taste a brew from Lagunitas that I did not love. |
On the 4th day of Christmas, my true love gave to me...
Christmas Ale from Bell's Brewery, Kalamazoo, MI.
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| This malt driven scotch ale is made with 100% Michigan grown barley. In contrast to many other seasonal brews (Winter, pumpkin, etc.), Christmas Ale doesn't contain any spices. Plenty of flavor and very little bitterness. |
On the 5th day of Christmas, my true love gave to me...
Christmas Ale from Abita Brewing Co., Covington, LA.
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| Abita changes the recipe on their Christmas Ale, an amber ale, every year. It's not very strong this year...actually pretty weak with not a lot of flavor. I've had better. |
On the 6th day of Christmas, my true love gave to me...
Christmas Ale from Breckenridge Brewery, Denver, CO.
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| This american strong ale has rich flavors of caramel and chocolate and at 7% abv, it's definitely a 'Winter warmer'. |
On the 7th day of Christmas, my true love gave to me...
Our Special Ale from Anchor Brewing Co., San Francisco, CA.
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| A very nice and smooth seasonal rated a 95 on ratebeer.com. Just slightly bitter with hints of spices. Excellent! |
On the 8th day of Christmas, my true love gave to me...
Christmas Ale from Great Lakes Brewing Co., Cleveland, OH.
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| Rated a 93 from ratebeer.com, this fine brew has a cinnamon and ginger spice flavor, a rich copper color, and a medium body that will fit with any holiday meal. Quite possibly the best Christmas Ale I've had so far! |
On the 9th day of Christmas, my true love gave to me...
Christmas Ale from Goose Island Beer Co., Chicago, IL.
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| This Christmas Ale is a brown ale and is a deep garnet color and brewed with a generous amount of hops that adds that extra spicy aroma. Another fantastic beer from Goose Island, rated 93 from ratebeer.com. |
On the 10th day of Christmas, my true love gave to me...
Santa's Private Reserve Ale from Rogue Ales, Newport, OR.
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| This amber ale, rated 93, is a variation of Rogue's Red Ale, which seems somewhat appropriate. This one has double the hops, including a mystery hop called Rudolph by the head brewer. |
On the 11th day of Christmas, my true love gave to me...
Alpha Klaus Christmas Porter from Three Floyds Brewing Co., Munster, IN.
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| Rated 100 on ratebeer.com and 7.5% abv, this big American Christmas porter is brewed with chocolate malt, Mexican sugars, and lots of hops. Another absolutely fantastic brew from Three Floyds! |
On the 12th day of Christmas, my true love gave to me...
Delirium Noel from the Huyghe Brewery, Melle, Belgium.
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| This spicy, crimson brew completes the Delirium trilogy (including Tremens and Nocturnum) of fantastic belgian strong ales and is, by far, my favorite of the seasonal Christmas ales. This ale is rated a 97 on ratebeer.com and is a stout 10% abv.
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Finding and sampling these beers was a lot of fun. I am especially pleased to have found twelve Christmas beers. I even have two more in the fridge that I did not include here. Maybe an addendum? A friend of mine suggested that I do an advent calendar for next year...a whole month of Christmas/Winter brew. That could be quite interesting.
