Holiday Beers (2025)

Here's my contribution.

Hardywood Kentucky Christmas Morning.



Pours a beautiful ebony with a 1/4' tan head. Cinnamon & ginger dominate on the nose. Taste is strong cinnamon, ginger, coffee, vanilla. Has a full body with light carbonation. Semisweet oily finish. Nice.

 

Good morning, all! Today we are finally meeting the daily protocol, such that it is, of this thread. I am going with a repeat brewery - I think I mentioned we got Hardywood's box set back on day one, and this is another from it. Though in this case, it is one that has shown up on shelves around here.

With the light snow we got last night, a pancake breakfast, such that it is, seemed in place - so this is Christmas Pancakes.


I'd have assumed this was a variant of Christmas Morning - a variant that itself involves coffee. But on Hardywood's site, there isn't anything about coffee (though the button does say "Find Christmas Morning near you." The addition of maple syrup to the recipe is what makes this what it is, regardless.

Anyhow, the nose is surprisingly tame. Maple is an ingredient that generally jumps out to me. But this beer actually has a rather stale, generic earthy spice to the aroma. The taste is a muted form of the base ginger-based beer with a back end of pancake syrup. It isn't so maple-specific at first, but seems more so in the finish.

I am not sure if the muted aspect is coffee countering the ginger a bit. The beer isn't too sweet, which is a surprise since the base beer is mildly sweet and maple is, well... maple. But overall, this has never been my favorite variant and today's assessment hasn't changed that.

Ha! I guess I had good timing - that is the bourbon barrel aged version of the beer I mentioned. When I first tried it, I thought it one of the best beers I had ever had. I still like it a lot, and feel the coffee plays well in the mix. Cheers!

 

Cheers for holiday beers!

Liking this one!!

 

Happy Snow Day to those in the Northeast. We got about 6 inches here in the Philly burbs.

Drinking a bottle of 2021 Straffe Hendrik Xmas Blend in between shoveling and refilling the bird feeders.

Rich dark malt, the oak is there but is in the background. Pretty smooth for 11% abv. I agree with @thebeers that the big Belgian Christmas beers are what I think of first for Holiday beers

 

This is as local a holiday Bier as they come

Bierkeller Dunkelweizenbock
The weihnachtsmarkt is hopping, I'm glad I got here when they opened.

 

Stone Brewing ~ Gimme Yule Gimme Fire

German-style holiday bock aged in charred bourbon barrels

"This holiday season, gather round the fireplace but skip the eggnog. For this extra-special One Batch Dispatch, we took a German-style holiday bock (that’s the “yule”) and aged it in charred bourbon barrels (that’s the “fire”). To be specific, this beer was aged 3 months in freshly-dumped Bulleit Rye Whiskey barrels. Dark malts and Munich malt from Germany combined with barrel complexity give this beer a rich caramel & toffee character. There’s a hint of sweetness you’d expect for a holiday beer, but it’s the balance and subtlety that make this 9.6% creation worth celebrating."

This was a recent purchase from Stone Liberty Station thinking they ran a re-release here...but alas it is the same 2022 One Batch Dispatch offering BA.

With that, the whisky is still quite prevalent but not completely in your face. Lots of char still lingering from the 3months barrel rest here. I suspect that the base Bock beer was not all that superlative to begin with however this has held up well. Soft layers of vanilla spice and brown cola elements. In fact, this has a lovely Jack & Coke like quality to it overall with the near 10% ABV well subdued. Finishes drier and in good balance. Decent enough to make for a nice Winter sipper.

 

After a visit to the local Christmas market, Garth and I stopped by our local brewery, Gravel Bottom, and I had their winter warmer, Jolly Trolley.

Cheers!

 

Browns are playing = time to start drinking
First time trying this one. A bit more than subdued than GLBC. I’m getting more nutmeg and ginger than honey and cinnamon. Cheers. Oh and Go Browns! Please just go!

 

Elise Navidad Christmas Ale by Schnitz Ale Brewery. Named for the brewer's daughter, this ale is a mix of spices like nutmeg and cinnamon with a warming ABV of 8%. Cheers.

 

Enjoying an Allagash Ski House while enjoying the Browns getting dominated by the Bears. One of the glories of being a lifelong Steelers fan living in Cleveland.

 

I decided to do the promised comparison today with the '24 & '25 versions of Old Fezziwig. Mostly I was curious about how well the beer ages over one year, but I was also curious about whether I can detect the sweet spices that are supposedly there. There really wasn't much difference between them at all, so a 1-year aging appears okay to do. The only difference that I noticed was the aroma was a bit fresher in the '25 version.

As for the sweet spices - I think I detected them in the aroma of the '25 version, but I wasn't able to taste them.

 

Revisiting this one for the first time in years thanks to this tasting, its been as fun as it always is @thebeers thanks for putting it on again. Snow on the ground, cold has descended again, Home Alone was watched, soup in the crock, time to unwind with a beer that is right on theme.

Sly Fox - Christmas Ale (Spice Ale 6.3%)



This is your run of the mill spiced christmas beer, nothing special but it gets the job done and gets one in the spirit. It has got the kitchen sink spice treatment of ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, and clove; which to me presents as very hard to described and just a holiday spiced, pleasantly, but no overly, sweet malty beer; drinkable and smooth.

Happy Holidaze everyone, looking forward to what everyone else is closing out with today.