The holidays are a great time for beer…And we’ll continue to showcase the season’s best festive offerings right up to December 25th.
Cheerful Drinking (Shiner, TX) – Holiday beers can come in all shapes and sizes and the Spoetzl Brewery’s (home to the entire Shiner family of beers) super-interesting winter offering comes with three different retro-cool labels that we love. Brewed with pecans and peaches (!) Shiner Holiday Cheer is a 5.4% ABV Dunkelweizen (Dark Wheat Ale) that takes an old world tradition in a Texas direction.
Holiday Madness (Hershey, PA) – Tröegs Brewing is renowned throughout the mid-Atlantic for its annual holiday release and it couldn’t be more distinctive. Tröegs Mad Elf is an award-winning 11.5% ABV ruby red Belgian-style Ale brewed with cinnamon, clove and allspice and massive amounts of cherries and honey.
Cause For Celebration (Chico, CA / Mills River, NC) – New Belgium’s Kim Jordon, has claimed that this late fall/early-winter seasonal is her “go-to” holiday beer – and we couldn’t agree with her more. First brewed in 1981, Sierra Nevada’s 6.8% ABV Celebration is one of a VERY FEW, holiday beers that’s actually an IPA – and because it’s brewed with “fresh hops” – it’s flavor and mouthfeel changes annually!
A Cascadian Dark Winter Ale For Winter’s Dark Nights (Eugene, OR) – After being retired for a couple of years Ninkasi Brewing smartly returned its acclaimed holiday ale in 2017 and there’s really nothing like it. Deceivingly drinkable and stylistically one of a kind, Ninkasi’s Sleigh’r Winter Ale is a rich malt-forward 7.2% ABV Doüble Alt Ale (!), brewed to keep you warm on those cold winter nights.
Don’t Open Till Christmas (Cleveland, OH) – A heritage brewer that is sometimes overlooked by a craft beer audience increasing captivated by the latest and the new, Great Lakes Brewing offers an enormously dependable holiday seasonal that’s more widely distributed than most. Brewed with an abundance of fresh regional honey and a complex mix of cinnamon and ginger, Great Lakes Christmas Ale is a 7.5% award-winning Winter Warmer…
Not enough holiday beers? We’ve more…