Best Beers for the Holidays

Whether you're looking for a tasty brew to pair with your Festivus feast or just want to get merry with your fam, I've got a beer for you:


Festivus Feast - Before you open up the Airing of Grievances, I recommend opening a bottle of Hibernus Quentum. The Belgian Tripel is my favorite style for holiday meals. They're effervescent, lifting fat and flavors off your tongue to clear your palate. The spice matches up with holidays seasoning. And they're complex enough to beat or match any wine most of us could afford.

Urthel Hibernus Quentum
De Leyerth Brouwerijen (Urthel)
Tripel | 9.00% ABV

A- / 4.25
look: 4 | smell: 4 | taste: 4.5 | feel: 4 | drink: 4.5

Poured from a skinny 330ml bottle, there's a tall white head with loud (relatively speaking) bubbles. On my tongue the beer is a little flatter than many Belgian, but that, I think, brings out more flavor instead of simply stinging my tongue. The flavor starts with a wonderful mixture of fresh baked white bread and earthy honey and ends with a hint of spicy hops for balance. In the aftertaste, a slight orange and cream flavor develops that's quite nice. The aroma has a slightly simpler profile with a mild perfume of Belgian candy and fresh (mild) herbs, like I've got one nostrel in a candy store and another in a garden.

This is a very well made Belgian tripel, though the complexity comes from its subtleties, so be prepared to stop and ponder the depths of this beer to enjoy to its fullest.


Get Merry - Look no further for liquid cheer - or just a great beer to sip by a fire. Bourbon-barrel beers are all over the board, some too thick and syrupy, some are thin and don't really resemble any sort of whiskey. Goose Island's BCS balances big mocha stout with smooth vanilla bourbon while providing a hell of a punch.

Bourbon County Stout
Goose Island
American Double / Imperial Stout | 13.00% ABV

A / 4.4
look: 4 | smell: 4 | taste: 4.5 | feel: 5 | drink: 5

Vintage 2007, 13% abv.

Easily the smoothest, tastiest ~13% beer I've ever had. Yes, it's a bit thick, but no more so than weaker double or imperial stouts. The aroma is rich with the bourbon which once on the palate, doesn't dominate, but compliments the strong, dark chocolate ad espresso flavors. Throw in a dash of oak and vanilla and you've got a hell of a beer. More please.


Party Like it's 1999 - If you're looking to party through this year and into the next, you'll need a session beer that won't knock you on your ass to fast. Pikeland Pils is Sly Fox's hoppy take on this classic German will satisfy your palate from first beer to the last.

Pikeland Pils
Sly Fox Brewing Company
German Pilsener | 4.90% ABV

A- / 4.2
look: 5 | smell: 4 | taste: 4 | feel: 4 | drink: 4

This beer looks amazing, it has a white head that won't stop and reminds me of Duvel. Smells of sweet, light malts. The flavor is bland at first but then the hops kick in. Overall tastes of long-lasting grassy, earthy hops with added grapefruit and a bit of fruity malt. A little hoppier than the imports I've had, more like Prima Pils. Actually it's a lot like Prima Pils, but I think I like this better. My can was a touch over carbonated, but it was still very drinkable.

I've heard people recommend this to beer noobs, but I dont think I'd do the same. The flavor is really all in the bitterness, so if you're not into that, tough.

The Problem With Big Beer

Over the weekend I tried and discussed a number of big (8%+ abv) beers. It's been a growing trend for a while to brew massive beers and sometimes age them in bourbon or some other sort of barrel. There are some fine world class big beers, like Westvleteren 12 and Russian River's Pliny the Younger, but I take issue with a lot of these brews because whether or not they taste good, they're often too damn thick to actually enjoy. Finish a bomber of some and sure, you'll be drunk, but you'll also feel like you just finished a turkey dinner.

From my homebrewing experience, I know that the more ingredients you throw at a beer and the more sugar you leave in (this sweetens and thickens), the easier it is to make a tasty beer. Drinkability be damned. Who needs a sessionable beer when beer geeks respond to sludge? Twenty-one of BeerAdvocate's top 25 beers are at least 8% abv, after all. Yeah there are some great beers on that list, most just wouldn't make it into my person top 25 brews.

Ranting aside, there's a right way and wrong way to make strong beers. Here's a recent barleywine I thought nailed the style, and a couple local Pennsylvania ales that succumbed to the trend toward being unnecessarily thick and strong.

Landmark Barleywine
Landmark Beer Company
English Barleywine | 9.00% ABV

A- / 4.05
look: 4 | smell: 4 | taste: 4 | feel: 4.5 | drink: 4

On-tap at Clarks Ale House in Syracuse for $6/pint. The light is a little low in here, but it appears a clear orange-red with with a short off-white head leaving lacing. For 9&, as the bartender tells me, this is a very drinkable barleywine - I like that. So many strong beer are too thick and sweet to really enjoy beyond a small pour. The aroma has a sweet caramel candy apple character.The flavor and feel are very smooth with chocolate biscuit and cookie malt undertones behind bittersweet orange peel hops. I'm reminded of a Terry's Chocolate Orange for the delicate mix of hops and mild grains. After some time to ponder the beer, I'm also finding toffee, grapefruit, and dried cherry notes. This is my favorite Landmark beer I've had, a real winner. Cheers to Kiernan!


Hop'solutely
Allentown Brew Works
American Double / Imperial IPA | 11.50% ABV

B / 3.65
look: 4 | smell: 4 | taste: 3.5 | feel: 3 | drink: 3.5

Split a 750ml bottle with friends at the Steelgaarden. Like most 11%+ IPAs, there's a lot of malty sweetness that takes away from the hops and makes it thicker than it needs to be. It drinks a bit like DFH 90 Minute in relation to the sticky sweetness. The hops are still pretty tasty with the chinook and centennial hops standing out at first with bitter grapefruit and pine, smooth flowery hops kick in and the finish is a mix of light caramel and citrus rind.


Blasphemy
Weyerbacher Brewing Co.
Quadrupel (Quad) | 11.80% ABV

C+ / 3.25
look: 4 | smell: 3.5 | taste: 3 | feel: 2 | drink: 3.5

Picked up a single in a mixed case from the brewery.

Whoa, put this one back, it ain't ready yet. I'm not saying it's a bad beer, but it feels like it needs some time. The nose has some great vanilla and oak notes, but they're overwhelmed by alcohol there and in the flavor. There's a background sweetness in the taste, but again the booze prevails. I recommend this beer because it seems like there's some great stuff going on, but let it sit for at least 6 months before consuming.

The Bookstore Speakeasy

The fine folks behind Emmaus, PA's Tap and Table just opened a new bar on Bethlehem's south side, The Bookstore Speakeasy. The Bookstore takes over the space previously occupied by Element, which lasted less than two years. Judging by their MySpace page, I honestly have no idea why that could have been.

The Bookstore, a 20's-style pub could come off gimmicky, but it's the real deal (save for the lack of mob beer and prohibition). The basement-level entrance is a plain, gray door with "BOOKSTORE" painted on, and leads to a small room packed with books on everything from "Sex Without Fear" to a 1955 anthology of US wetlands.

Pushing past a double curtain, the speakeasy is a small but plush barroom with dark wood furnishing and gas lamps on each table. The menu is pasted into the front pages of weathered hardcovers and a small chalkboard behind the bar lists their six taps.

When my group stumbled in, a three-piece band was playing hot jazz while the singer channeled Louis Armstrong through an antique microphone. A few couples danced in the limited floor space and soon enough our waitress was bring beer and slabs of cheese.

The atmosphere is smart, yet comfortable and the beer list covers enough ground to keep snobs and their unenlightened friends (approachable beers but nothing trashy) happy. Personally, this is the sort of bar I could stay in until sunrise.