When do you start drinking Christmas Ales?

I’m not a huge fan of spiced beer and rarely buy them.
I usually start drinking Christmas Ales when somebody hands me one.

Don’t want to be rude
Cheers!

 

Ready for blowback, but I can't stand "spiced" beers. Celebration is great, love my oatmeal stouts, porters, normal stouts, brown ales, and any of the aforementioned with coffee. But as you soon as you start dumping orange peel, cinnamon, and Christmas candle wax into the beer... I'm grabbing some Pepsi.

 

Won’t touch them until after thanksgiving at the absolute earliest. But pretty much the week of Christmas.

Oh, how I miss Anchor Christmas magnums!

 

I used to try to hold off until on/after Thanksgiving, but the last few years I have been getting into them as soon as I see them start to hit shelves.

I picked up a sixer of GL Christmas Ale, and a sixer of Sam Adams Winter White Ale, as well as a Delirium Noel Gift pack over the weekend. Anxiously awaiting the release of Highland Cold Mountain (probably my favorite Christmas Beer)

 

I start usually November 1st or 2nd. I'm a sucker for anything seasonal/Christmas related beers. I kick off the season with Celebration and I just found a 6'er of SA's Old Fezziwig which I enjoy during the cold nights of the season. I try to find a 6 pack or two of Great Divide's Hibernation and Brooklyn's black Chocolate Stout. I have some bottles of Anchor's Christmas Ale that have been conditioning that get opened on special occasions. Gotta have Sam Adam's Winter Lager of course and New Belgium Accumulation IPA. After the holiday's I gravitate toward's my remaining stouts and then SN's Torpedo till Spring beers start to show up.

 

Once I start seeing the "ion" beers on the shelf (Hibernation, Celebration, Isolation, Old Jubilation, etc.) it's game on for me. I don't care about the weather or what time of year it is.

 

Already started. I'm in Seattle visiting my son this weekend (four day weekend). Picked up a Reuben's Festive Ale and we already finished it. Love Christmas Ales and Winter Warmers.

 

Is that this year's Fezziwig? I haven't heard that it's released yet. I have a couple of them from last year that I held back to see if that beer ages well. (I'm not expecting much because I was disappointed with last year's batch. It was bland, boring to me. I'll probably try one on T-Day.

(No BA ratings/reviews yet on this year's batch.)

 

Like all of Sam Adams brews, I haven't thought that Old Fezziwig or any other offering has been as tasty as it used to be since around 2020.

Still think the pandemic caused breweries to water down old favorites due to supply chain issues, rising costs or realizing people would just keep buying their old favorites no matter what so hey, there's money to be made!

First step, collect underpants......third step, PROFITS!

 

Already started so there’s that.

Winter/Christmas is by far my favorite beer season. And I typically enjoy my Quads and BSDAs with at least a year on them so generally drinking cellar supply that is available whenever I want to start and then restocked with freshies for the next year.

 

Maybe it's just me, but I think that their beers changed when they updated (and made then generic) their labels!

 

I think it was actually pre-COVID, although I'm sure that didn't help right the ship. I noticed a pretty distinct difference in their core beers right after the Dogfish merger was announced in the middle of 2019. The DFH beers didn't overtly change, but that's when I started getting a slew of off-notes from Sam Adams beers. Their house flavor seemed to change, too. I could always pick any Sam Adams beer out of a lineup blind with 90% accuracy. I still can, but that house flavor (while ever-present) is different now.

 

For me it's when the weather finally gets cold. I start with the Winter Ales and darker Lagers. That's about now. I'm a big Marzen guy so it's hard to let go of Oktoberfest. I'll switch to more spiced or sweeter "Christmas" beers after Thanksgiving. That last week before Christmas I make every attempt to get a hold of Santa Clausthaler NA but that's only a Christmas week thing. Then it's back to Winter Ales and Dark Lagers.

 

I’m probably in the minority but I wont drink Christmas Ales until Thanksgiving Day. Every year I get two growlers of GL Christmas Ale fresh from the brewery after work on Wednesday and break them out to share on turkey day. It’s become a family tradition. Occurs to me I also probably post this same story to a thread like this every year so I guess that’s another annual tradition

 

Once these guys show up it’s time to start.

 

I buy and drink Celebration as soon as I find it.

Other than that, I don't drink Xmas beers until after Thanksgiving is over. I keep some pumpkin ales in the back (coldest) part of my beer fridge for Thanksgiving.

I enjoy drinking seasonal beers in the season they were originally designed for.

 

Thanksgiving week

 

I can't tell you how much this brewery pisses me off just from the fact that they no longer brew Adoration. That beer was killer and have no idea why they stopped releasing it around the holidays. They spend so much of their time brewing up bullshit that I have no interest in drinking. Ok, rant over. But if any of you from Ommegang are in this thread, please bring Adoration back!