Winter -Christmas Ales

Wild Goose was bought by Frederick. Frederick had some rough spots, particularly in the past 18 months, but they're on solid ground now. They never actually ceased production.

-- Lew Bryson

Author of "New York Breweries" and "Pennsylvania Breweries," 2nd ed., both available at The Hotmail address on this post is for newsgroups only: I don't check it, or respond to it. Spam away.

Double the amount of hops, supposedly. I like it a lot. And the Mogul is terrific. I haven't seen it in ages, unfortunately.

Alpha Klaus--Nose like a freaking scotch pine. Merrry Christmas, dammit. Seriously, some tasty stuff.

Celebration--good as always, but I verticaled the 2002-2004 and the oldest was the best to me. Hops are just too raw when this one's fresh.

--NPD

I can't believe after all those posts not one mention of Anchor OSA. Always a looked forward to christmas release. This years seems to be pretty good, only had one after a couple SN Celebrations so my taste buds may have been a bit compromised. :)

Steve

Just got some Snow Goose and it is nice!

As for seasonal beers, I appreciate the variety more than a specific style. The only exception is SNCA of which I buy enough to last the year with reasonable rationing.

Is that the porter-y Three Floyd's seasonal? Or is it wildly different every year?

Interesting. I don't think it lasts well more than about six months. It starts tasting old/tired/stale to me at that point. Occasionally, as it was a year or maybe two ago, it's a bit lacking in the malt and body area so does take a bit of time to mellow, but IMO that's the exception rather than the rule.

Nick Dempsey wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@uchicago.edu:

I think that's the appeal of it. Have enough to do a five-year vertical this year and I don't expect the older ones to be particularly impressive, but will be interesting nonetheless.

Yes they call it a "Christmas Porter". I don't know that its wildly different every year. I had it last year, it was a super hopped porter.

Yeah. And this year's is particularly good IMO.

Update:

I just had the Alaskan on tap and it's much better than the bottle...nice malt character which the bottle lacked. Also had a Breckenridge Christmas Ale...quite tasty hop dominated(but not too much) brew.

Best regards, Bill

I'm a real sucker for anything labelled christmas beer. I love the season so it is a little like believing in santa again even when I know a japanese company is brewing a bunch of crap and labelling it xmas beer. I have always liked the spiced beers or the especially dark and heavy seasonal so I guess I think of:

Anchor Christmas SNCA Lakefront Holiday (WI) Alaska Smoked Porter Marin CA Brewing Hoppy Holidaze Sprecher (WI) Winter (varies over the years)

I didn't like Rogue Santa's as much this year. While I really like Anderson Valley beers their xmas beer has tasted like cotton candy to me the past two years and has been the worst thing I can remember in a decade. Can't remember too many PH-NJ entries but that is probably a result of too many a year ago.

Is cotton candy the weird, artificial sweet flavor in the AV winter brew? Whatever it is, I don't like it.

snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com (Kenji) wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@posting.google.com:

Dunno. All I know is it tastes more like cream soda than any cream soda ever produced. Not a beer I even vaguely crave.

I bought a bomber of AV winter solstice a few weeks ago and its been sitting in my fridge until the past three posts inspired me to open it. I'm pretty sure the Natural Flavoring is Vanilla and I agree that it tastes a bit like cream soda.

mike

Full Sail's Wassail is a total winner in my book.

Just tried Stoudt's Winter last night. Was damn pleased.