German Beer & Christmas

Festbier and Doppelbock. Hofbrau has a new version of their Winter Spezial out for this season; a Doppelbock. It takes the place of the version they had out a few years ago; a Festbier.

 

WEIHNACHTSBIER!

 

And Weihnachtsbier is, most often, Doppelbock.

 

You have all year to say doppelbock, though.

 

Of course, if you're looking for an ultimate Germanic Christmas beer, you should look for: http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/285/776/

 

If it wasn't over 60° today, I would have normally gone down into the cellar and pulled out a 1990s vintage (from Hurlimann) for the annual helping watching my wife decorate the Christmas tree.

(Well, I did cut off the bottom 2" with the Sawzall, and swept up the two broken balls and lots of spruce needles (damn spruces)... Oh, and took a pic, too).

 

Doppelbocks & Eisbocks are my go to beers for the colder months.

 

Monk's Christkindl
http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/6063/148526/

 

Mahr's Christmas Bock.

Maria (@utopiajane) wrote up a nice review of this beer in a recent New Beer Sunday thread: http://www.beeradvocate.com/community/threads/new-beer-sunday-week-564.365029/#post-4329984

Cheers!

 

Samiclaus and aventinus eisbock

 

Apologies to the other posters, but I think the appropriate answer is Fernsehbier.

 

I think the more appropiate answer these days may be imperial stout
Anyway, I love, esp. for christmas cuisine, Weihnachtsfestbiers. Esp. the ones which are dark and a tad stronger than the regular Dunkle. My personal favorite, still, is Krug Bräu Weihnachtsbier. Excellent, spicy hops, not overly sweet, but nice,malty, full bodied. And will you just look at that label?

 

Doppelbock, Eisbock and Weizenbock are all styles on my short lost for the next couple months (Rauchbier equivalents too where applicable).

 

You're killing me, man- we can't even get regular dunkels over here.

 

look at my avatar!! With the warmer weather all across the east coast you can go in any direction, hefe, kristal, dunkel - all superbly great choices!! And reasonable$

 

That mix pack with the glass that comes out every Christmas is one of the best deals every holiday season.

As an aside, check the dates on these or any other holiday glass/mix pack. Distributors may toss older bottles in these bottles.

I bought a Samuel Smith holiday gift pack and all three beers were already six months old. I bought it last year and it tasted quite fresh (I don't know the dates). For some reason I thought Samuel Smith didn't have a date code on the bottles, but they do. I already the India Ale and Oatmeal Stout, they were both still pretty good. The hops were somewhat faded with the IPA, and it was a bit hazy, I remembered last year being clear. Oh well, Chocolate Stout is left, not too worried about a six month old bottle of that.

 

You really think that distributors open up sealed cases containing the Holiday mixed packs, open each box, take out the bottles, open up sealed cases of older bottles and use them to replace the removed bottles and then close up all the boxes and seal the cases so that retailers are unaware that they're getting old stock in previously-opened cases? Seems like a lot of work and labor cost, especially for a beer that is notorious for being old on the shelves anyway.

 

Good point.

I also typed, "bottles in these bottles".

All I know is that the bottles in a Schneider gift pack I had a few years ago were all over a year old. And when I returned it, my liquor store returned all of their gift packs and received fresh gift packs containing bottles from that year. Last year I also discovered Schlenkerla Eiche that was over two years ago when I contacted the brewery. The stores I went to then returned all their old stock and received fresh bottles.

In both cases I was told the distributor was in hot water over this, not the brewery. That old stock was sent out from the warehouse. Whether it's true or not, who knows...but if I was a brewery I would never send a distributor beer that's 1 to 2 years old.

 

Well, yeah - I can easily believe both of those stories - but neither implies the distributor opened cases and replaced bottles - new with old - only that they shipped retailers the previous years' gift boxes. No different that many other cases of old beer delivered to retailers, which is common enough since (as your stories illustrate) many retailers fail to check the dates on incoming deliveries.

Now, those "mixed" cases that contain beers from multiple breweries that show up a lot around this time of year, often labeled generically with titles like "Beers of the World" - yeah, those are suspect. They're usually made up at the retail (or, sometimes, the wholesale) level and are a way to unload old or poor selling stock, the retailer just buys empty boxes.