I know it's a little early for winter beer talk but we're setting up a beer advent calendar at work and I'm in charge of the beer list. The premise is to get 24 cases and divide between 24 people, drinking 1 beer a night starting on 12/1. We're going to average out the case price to try and be between $50-60 and collect for the pot so nobody gets stuck buying a $100 case. My department is a mix of beer enthusiasts and beginners, a lot of pumpkin beer fans in the fall. They've said they're open to trying new beers/styles though and don't want 24 pumpkin beers/winter warmers. So my task now is to get 24 cases of mostly fall/winter seasonal beers with a mix of styles and approach-ability. Main exceptions are that they need to be 12 ounces and available in Pittsburgh. So far these are my thoughts, what would you pick? What else would you add? Anderson Valley Blood Orange Gose Bells Best Brown Ale Boulevard Funky Pumpkin Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout Cordendonk Christmas Ale Deschutes Jubelale Dogfish Head Indian Brown Ale Fat Heads Trail Head Founders Breakfast Stout Mad Elf Troegs Ommegang Rossetta Sam Adams Old Fezziwig Sierra Nevada Celebration Sierra Nevada Oktoberfest Great Lakes Oktoberfest Stevens Point Whole Hog Stone Xocoveza Stone Enjoy by 12.25.16 Thirsty Dog 12 Days of Christmas Victory Winter Cheers Victory/Founders/Fat Heads Wet-Hopped IPA (depends on timing of releases) Weyerbacher Imperial Pumpkin Delerium Noel Thanks in advance!
Hi CaryDieter, You've got a pretty good list. My wife and I have been doing this for a few years. It's our tradition to do all the shopping for the group of friends so all of their beers are a total surprise. We had Rogue Santa's private reserve and Ninkasi Sleigh'r in ours. If you've got time, check out https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/325435100/beer-advent-calendar-the-beer-lovers-holiday-tradi for an awesome way to present your calendars. Making 24 custom boxes to hold and hide the beer takes a lot of time (I made 40 one year). These make it easy and fun.
Seems a good list. But a few precautions. Have a backup alternative for the Old Fezziwig as you may find it is only available in the variety case. One possibility is Anchor's Our Special Ale. Also, Troegs Blizzard of Hops may be out early enough for you to include. You folks will probably have to be advance ordering and handling a lot of cases of beer, see if you can get the distributor(s) where you order the beers to use some space in the cold box to store them as they come in to help keep them fresh until pick up, etc. And you may find you have to use more than one distributor to fill that list. Also, you'll want to collect most or all of the pot of money up front so there's no appearance of reselling alcohol without a license. Especially if one person is handling all the ordering/buying. If you find you need more ideas to fill gaps in your beer list, check out a copy of this book: https://www.amazon.com/Christmas-Beer-Cheeriest-Tastiest-Unusual/dp/0789317966 Enjoy!
