The Undefinable Christmas Beer

It means Beer of Christmas - we teach you beer and
French on this blog

Technically, it’s a misnomer, or perhaps more accurately, it’s a commonly used phrase for a style of beer that’s not really a style. Let me explain.

Last week, I set out on my 25 Beers of Christmas challenge, and I am here to report that I am failing miserably. I recall at the time, I opined that it might be a tad unrealistic of a challenge, and require a lot more front-end logistics than I was willing to commit. If any of you faithful readers are doing better than I am, please come forward and tell me your story… I will include it in the next blog as an example of what a committed steward of the crafty community can accomplish when his or her mind is put to the task.

But enough about my shortcomings. One positive thing that has come out of the 25 Beers challenge is the ability to compare and contrast different Christmas-themed brews side by side. Once I got past the delicious flavors and aromas, beautiful colors, interesting label art and naming conventions, I noticed something that had never occurred to me before: Many of these Christmas beers are of different styles, and furthermore, “Christmas” is not a style of beer at all.”

While a touch disappointing, I believe that in the case of Christmas or holiday beers, a lack of a set style is a great thing. In fact, from a holistic sense, craft brewers tend to really go wild with their concoctions this time of year. These winter seasonal beers are not often entered in beer competitions so brewers are more comfortable with throwing the style guidelines out of the window and just make a beer that they think their customers can enjoy. It’s the perfect way to brew beer in this brewer’s humble opinion.

Ian Malcolm is not impressed

Because I constantly try to apply order to a complex system, much to the chagrin of the Chaos Theory Community, I have developed three categories in which to lump Christmas beers.

The first category, and the only one of these that approaches being a proper style, is the winter warmer. The winter warmer isn't generally recognized as a unique style because its interpretations are as various as the breweries that make it. However, more and more winter warmer competitions are springing up in various parts of the country, so perhaps the “style” is evolving. Winter warmers tend to have a big malt bill, meaning that there’s a larger than normal amount of enzymes and other sugars thrown into the brew pot. This can result in a beer with higher than usual alcohol or a very sweet flavor profile or, more often than not, both. They vary in color from brownish red to pitch black and generally have a low, leveled, and balanced hop bitterness. Some are spiced, and tend to follow the English “wassail” tradition of blending robust ales with mixed spices (which was common before hops became the principle beer spice).

Back in the day, winter warmers with arrogant levels of flavor and alcohol were the perfect beer for the holiday season. However, in today's beer scene, extreme beers are available all year round with their near immoral levels of hops, malt and alcohol, and the winter warmer seems a little less extraordinary. Many breweries still make some version of a winter warmer as their holiday seasonal release. Expect lots of flavor and alcohol, but if you are a fan of the extreme beer movement, do not expect to have your socks knocked off.

The second category of Christmas beers, which is not a style so much as it is a brewing technique, is adjunct brewing. The stigma surrounding the word adjunct in brewing terms will cause many in the know to shutter at the mere mention of it when describing beautifully delicious crafty Christmas beer, but allow me to clarify my point. Back in the days of the Reinheitsgebot, or Bavarian purity laws, it was determined that beer was to be made using only three components: water, malted barley and hops. They later added yeast once they figured out what yeast was. But by definition, anything beyond those three (four) ingredients was verboten (or in our context, an adjunct). Fast forward a few hundred years to the American Industrial Beer Debacle and you’ll find the big boys using corn, rice, and sugar (adjuncts) as substitutes for malted barley in an effort to save money and dilute the end product. Clearly, the word stigma was an understatement on my part.

100% awesome cinnamon sticks

Fortunately, today’s craft beer community has embraced using a different kind of adjunct. Instead of substituting cheap alternatives for proper brewing ingredients, we are adding flavoring agents (often times fairly expensive and hard to acquire) in addition to the proper grain amount in order to achieve a more glorious end product. A lot of popular Christmas beers are those that employ adjuncts, especially holiday appropriate adjuncts. Spices like ginger, cinnamon, allspice, cloves, and cardamom, as well as fruits like cherries and cranberries are often found in Christmas beers in order to give them some additional holiday cheer. Honey is also a very common adjunct in Christmas beers. In many cases, these adjuncts that the brewers employ are closely guarded proprietary secrets.

The third and final category that I have concocted in order to rack and stack Christmas beers is the Christmas-themed wildcard beers category [COP-OUT ALERT]. This category has no right and left limits, other than that the beers placed into it are Christmas/holiday season themed. The category could include a Christmas/holiday/winter seasonal release, even if the beer in question is not a traditional Christmas/holiday/winter style. As long as the beer’s name is Christmas-like, or the label art invokes themes of the holiday season, or it is deliberately released as a seasonal offering for this time of year, it’s in the club. I know, this seems like a cut-rate catch-all category that will serve to clean-up the scraps left behind by the first two, and it is exactly that, but remember back to the beginning of this blog post when I asserted that Christmas beer is NOT a defined style and that the lack of a style is good thing. It allows brewers to have some fun and offer a beer that is devoid of parameters and is intended to bring you good tidings and holiday cheer. Now who could argue with that?

It's the most wonderful time of the year

If you would like some recommendations on Christmas beers that I recommend you go out and try, see last week’s post on the 25 beers of Christmas. Seriously, any one of them would be a great choice.

Here’s to craft-brewed happiness… Cheers!