Top Beer Styles For This Hoppy Holiday
By Ian Guevara
The holiday period of late December and early January as an adult is a wild ride. I am not speaking of that age range of 18-29 year olds who think they’re adults. That glorious age range where drinking beer, whiskey, and spiked eggnog only results in a temporary hangover and a great set of stories riddled with holes from a rolling blackout.
No, I am speaking of that time passed 30 when your late nights are not spent slamming spiced rum and candied pecans, but rather spent wrapping presents and dreading the ticking countdown of a clock reminding you that it is near time to just turn around and watch little hands shred to bits hours of careful construction.
Obviously what we do to cope with this shift in life’s paradigm is “lightly” indulging in libations. At this point in my life, I can not crush a sixer or two while dealing with severe sleep deprivation, so I pick six beer styles to imbue, each one with its own purpose and pairing with my family's traditional fare.
Brown Ale
The standard of this holiday beer list. With its malty, roasty, nutty, chocolate, and toffee notes, the Brown Ale is a must have.
My personal favorite right now is Civil Life’s Brown Ale out of St Louis, Missouri. It is delectable and rich in its malts and roasty flavors. I was introduced to Civil Life’s Brown Ale last year around this time when my girlfriend returned from St. Louis after visiting family and it instantly became one of my favorite beers.
Brown Ales are typically good beers to pair with pheasant and fowl. I find that Brown Ales serves as the perfect beer when overfilling that plate with various stuffings, dressings, and bits of that tasty roasted goose.
Stout
Dessert, dessert, dessert. Nothing better compliments that holiday smorgasbord of desserts like a tasty stout rich and thick in sweet maltiness and a slight hop bitterness. Bonus points if it is an imperial stout aged in a bourbon or rum barrel.
This is a beer where you need to take your time, which is a benefit because we all need a metaphorical “stop” sign when plowing through that fine holiday course. Enjoy the beer and final course, slow it down. And melt into the evening.
My current go-to Stout is Second Line Brewing’s Annunciation, a Caribbean Rum Barrel-Aged Coffee Stout that presents a vibrant sweetness and bitter balance. Perfect sipper to pour and pair with a pecan pie or banana pudding.
Porter
Every Christmas I am tasked with “cooking” THE spiral ham for Christmas dinner. Brown sugar, all-spice, nutmeg, cinnamon, ground clove, and pina colada moonshine serve as my glaze. Pineapple chunks and cherries soaked for days in said moonshine serve as the morsels of delight around the outside of the ham, giving it the appearance of a sweet and savory porcupine of gout and diabetes.
The best beer to pair with this dish can only be the Porter with its silky smooth chocolate notes with balanced malt and hop notes. The Porter balances the saltiness and fats of the spiral ham, providing a fantastic array of flavors that bounce around on the tongue delightfully.
Gnarly Barley’s Korova Milk Porter is my current favorite, providing all the best qualities found in an oatmeal Baltic porter. It possesses a splendid silky smooth chocolaty taste followed by only a slight bitterness.
Spiced Ale
Fall and winter have so many flavors and smells that surround those cool and brisk days. The savory cloves stuffed in fatty meats, the smell of allspice filling the lungs, the whiff of ginger and brown sugar from tender cookies, and the hint of cinnamon grabbing you like a cartoon scent cloud pulling you to a warm tasty pie, these are the smells of the holidays.
A spiced Ale is the best all-around holiday beer to just pull you into the holiday spirit and keep you there well past “King’s Day”.
Have you ever wondered what leaves changing color tastes like? The Witch Please, an Imperial Amber Ale spiced with all-spice, cinnamon, and nutmeg is the answer, it is the only answer. It is the best spiced ale to get the holiday juices flowing.
Black Lager
A typical Irish New Years day dinner can not be complete without the classics of corned beer, black eyed peas, and cabbage. With New Orleans having a fairly heavy Irish influence, this menu remains a staple every first of the year. I can not think of any family New Years party that did not include these fares.
I can not think of a better beer to pair with a life restoring New Years meal than a typical Dark Lager. With its dark chocolate hue and deep malt flavor, a fine Dark Lager may scare you with its deep opaqueness, but do not be scared to dive in, this beer is rather light for a darker brew and goes with any holiday meal.
Great Raft Brewing’s Reasonably Corrupt is a Black Lager you cannot turn away from. Malty and chocolaty with a crisp finish, this is a wonderful beer to pair with your New Year’s Feast or 12th king cake.
Miller Lite
I mean, not everyone likes a good craft beer and I understand that. I dont always need to watch a movie that creates depth through mise en scene and camera angles. Sometimes I like a big dumb action movie like Con Air or Commando. That is how I feel about Miller Lite (or Coors Lite or PBR), sometimes a big dumb beer is all you need to enjoy that holiday party.
Miller Lite is my choice currently. I used to be a Coors man, but as I have aged and fallen in love with craft beer, I have found that the only “Lite” beer that has any sense of flavor is Miller Lite. A good Miller Lite is paired wonderfully with a menthol cigarette and a $1.49 can of pirouettes.
Happy Hanukkah, Merry Christmas, Happy Kwanzaa, Happy New Year, Merry 12th Night, and Happy New Year. It does not matter what beer you are drinking, as long as your are enjoying it and enjoying the company surrounding it.
