I sure do love “Top 10” lists – especially top 10 lists that pertain to beer. So when I found two of them today, I was pretty thrilled. The first, from Denver’s Westword.com, is a list of “10 Holiday Beers to Help you Forget 2008” (don’t we all need that!) compiled by Jonathan Shikes. The ten beers on the list are:
- Alaskan Winter Ale
- Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale
- Odell Isolation Ale
- Fort Collins Big Shot Seasonal Ale
- Alaskan Smoked Porter (side note: I’ll be having my first bottle of Alaskan Smoked Porter this New Year’s Eve and I am VERY excited about it!)
- Left Hand Brewing’s Snowbound Ale
- Port Brewing Santa’s Little Helper
- Bristol Brewing’s Winter Warlock
- Stone Double Bastard
- Anchor Christmas Ale
Along with the Westword.com article are links to Shikes’ personal reviews of each beer; check them out, they’re pretty fun.
The second Top 10 list was actually from npr.org and was complied by Don Russell — better known as “Joe Sixpack” — so I knew ahead of time it had to be good. Russell’s list includes:
- Smuttynose Winter Ale (New Hampshire)
- Stille Nacht (Belgium)
- Troegs Mad Elf (Pennsylvania)
- Mahr’s Christmas Bock (Germany)
- Anchor Our Special Ale (California)
- Samuel Smith’s Winter Welcome (England)
- Anderson Valley Winter Solstice (California)
- Baladin Noel (Italy)
- Samichlaus (Austria)
- Gouden Carolus Noel (Belgium)
The accompanying NPR article had some fun little background information on Christmas Ales/Winter Warmers — such as, “For millennia, [Russell] says, farmers around the globe marked the winter solstice by brewing particularly potent beer, heavy with fruit and grain” — and Russell himself as well, and is definitely worth the read.
Of the twenty beers listed above, which are your favorite (or least favorite) beers for the holidays?