The 25 Beers of Christmas

He's making a list, and he's
checking it twice.

There are several things going on here. First of all, as I’m sure you've noticed by your expanded waste line and the large pile of leftover turkey in the refrigerator, Thanksgiving has come and gone - which means the Christmas season is upon us. As the song says, “it’s the most wonderful time of the year.” Not just because of decorations, baked goodies, smiling faces, carols and general merriment, but the beers aren't too bad either.

I am committing, as I often do, to keeping this pattern of holiday-themed posts going, and providing nothing but Christmas-related blog posts from now until the fat man in the red suit comes down the chimney. Anything you ever wanted to know, and some things you didn't, about beer at Christmas time.

The first post in this series is titled “The 25 Beers of Christmas.” As the name suggests, this is going to be a list of 25 of my favorite Christmas beers, with a few notes attached, which will serve as a road map to guide you through the holiday season. By no means am I suggesting that you attempt to find all 25 of these beers and drink them on their respective days as some sort of beer advent calendar, nor am I trying to endorse these brews as being the only Christmassy brews worth your time. I am merely listing here folks, a non-comprehensive collection of some of my favorites… to inspire. Plus, if you want to quest to drink each of these on their respective days (hopefully you’ll be able to find them all), there may be a place in the beer hall of fame in it for you. Challenge accepted?

The 25 Beers of Christmas

On the first day of Christmas the brewers gave to me…

1. Great Lakes Brewing Company | Christmas Ale

·        Cleveland, OH

·        A holiday ale brewed with honey and spiced with fresh ginger and cinnamon.

2. Tröegs Brewing Company | Mad Elf

·        Hershey, PA

·        The Mad Elf is a cheerful creation to warm your heart and enlighten your tongue. The combination of cherries, honey, and chocolate malts delivers gentle fruits and subtle spices. Fermented and aged with a unique yeast, this ruby red beer has significant warming strength that underlies the pleasant character of this intriguing yet delicious Ale. The Mad Elf is a jolly and delicious beer for the holidays.

They don't just make toys you know.

3. 21st Amendment Brewery | Fireside Chat

·        San Francisco, CA

·        Like FDR's Depression-era radio addresses, which were like a kick in the butt and a hug at the same time, our Fireside Chat is a subtle twist on the traditional seasonal brew. We begin with a rich, dark, English-style ale and then we improvise with spices until we know we have a beer worth sharing with the nation.

4. Anchor Brewing Company | Anchor Christmas Ale

·        San Francisco, CA

·        Since 1975, the brewers of Anchor Steam Beer have created a distinctive Christmas Ale, which is only available from early November to mid-January.  A closely guarded secret, each year Christmas Ale gets a unique recipe and a unique label that is not only available in 6-packs, but also magnum sized bottles, making a nice champagne substitute and a great way to share the holiday spirit.

Rocky Mountain Holiday Cheer.

5. Breckenridge Brewery | Christmas Ale

·        Denver, CO

·        Breckenridge Brewery first introduced Christmas Ale in 1993 and has been brewing this recipe for the holiday season since. This beer is known for its heartiness and rich flavors of caramel and chocolate. Unlike many holiday and winter beers, Breckenridge doesn't add any spice to its Christmas Ale. The spicy characteristics of this ale come from the Chinook and Mt. Hood hops.

6. New Belgium Brewing | Snow Day Winter Ale

·        Fort Collins, CO

·        Pleasantly hoppy, Snow Day carries the subtle chocolate and caramel flavors of a new brewing malt known as Midnight Wheat. The Styrian Golding, Centennial and Cascade hops bring the backbone of hoppy bitterness to complement the roasty undertones. This beer is the deep garnet of a roasted walnut and presents a creamy tan head, floating artfully atop. Snow Day is bold and hoppy, drinkable and strong. It reminds you to enjoy the unexpected.

7. Flying Dog Brewing Company | K-9 Winter Ale

·        Frederick, MD

·        K-9 is a winter warmer at its finest. It has a rich malt base with roasted, nutty and slightly spicy notes.

8. Left Hand Brewing Company | Fade to Black Volume 4

·        Longmont, CO

·        This beer pours pitch black with an off-white head. Citrus (bergamot) and roastiness dominates the nose. Slight sweet malt flavors are initially pushed back by citrusy hops followed by powerful Italian Amaro hop bitterness. Fade to Black finishes with a pleasant duality of dry roasted malts and hop bitterness.

9. Full Sail Brewing Company | Full Sail Wassail

·        Hood River, OR

·        This year’s Wassail is brewed with a range of caramel malts and dark chocolate malts giving it a deep mahogany color and a full malty body, perfect for the holidays. We used a blend of European noble hops and Pacific Northwest aroma hops for a pleasantly hoppy finish creating a deliciously balanced beer that appeals to both hop and malt lovers alike.

10. Great Divide Brewing Company | Hibernation Ale

·        Denver, CO

·        Hibernation Ale has been our celebrated winter tradition since 1995. This robust, dry-hopped ale has a malty richness balanced with a complex hop profile and hearty, warming character.

11. Clipper City Brewing Company | Heavy Seas Beer Winter Storm

·        Baltimore, MD

·        Imperial extra special bitter: ruddy-hued winter ale with full, malty flavors dancing with hop aromas and a firm hop bitterness

12. Anderson Valley Brewing Company | Winter Solstice Seasonal Ale

·        Boonville, CA

·        The holidays are a special time in Anderson Valley. The days are darker, weather colder, and foods richer. And Anderson Valley’s Winter Solstice Seasonal Ale is perfect for this time of year. Deep amber in color, with an inviting aroma of spice and nutmeg, it was made for the turkeys, cranberries, hams, and yams of the holidays. Winter Solstice Seasonal Ale evokes a crackling fire, drifting snow, and smells of home. A hint of spice and hop bite to balance out the creamy and smooth mouthfeel, and medium sweetness.

13. Harpoon Brewing Company | Harpoon Winter Warmer

·        Boston, MA

·        Brewed since 1988, this beer has become a New England seasonal classic.  Cinnamon and nutmeg dominate the aroma.  The taste is a rich combination of the holiday spices and the hearty malt backbone.  There is a mild sweetness to the finish along with the lingering flavor of the spices.

As warm and inviting as what you might
find in a Dicken's novel.

 14. Boston Beer Company | Samuel Adams Old Fezziwig Ale

·        Boston, MA

·        Samuel Adams Old Fezziwig Ale® is bursting with spices of the season.  With a remarkably full body and flavor it helps those long winter nights pass more quickly. The rich taste hits the palate with a depth of malt character ranging from sweet toffee and caramel notes to dark, roasty chocolate notes. Then the spices come in full force. Cinnamon, ginger and orange peel dance on the tongue bringing with them the celebratory spirit of the season.

15. Alaskan Brewing Co. | Alaskan Winter Ale

·        Juneau, AK

·        Brewed in the style of an English old ale, Alaskan Winter Ale balances the sweet, floral aroma of hand-collected Sitka spruce tips with the clean, crisp finish of noble hops. Its malty richness is complemented by the warming sensation of alcohol.

16. Rogue Ales | Yellow Snow: India Pale Ale

·        Newport, OR

·        This golden, hoppy ale with a fruity aroma was originally introduced for the Winter Olympics. Yellow Snow is Rogue's tribute to winter sports everywhere—downhill skiing, snowboarding, cross country, ice-hockey, ice fishing, snowmobiling and even curling. Yellow Snow is dedicated to common sense. Rogue is a Revolution which expresses itself through handcrafted artisan ales, lagers, stouts, porters, meads and spirits.

17. Samuel Adams | Samuel Adams Winter Lager

·        Boston, MA

·        Samuel Adams Winter Lager is a spiced wheat bock. German brewers may have been on to something centuries ago when they created bold, rich bock beers for the winter. For our beer, we brewed a dark wheat bock subtly spiced with fresh ground cinnamon, ginger and orange zest for a deep, smooth flavor and malty finish that will warm you on a cold winter’s night.

18. Schlafly Beer | Schlafly Christmas Ale

·        St. Louis, MO

·        Our Christmas Ale is a warming winter ale that blends the spices of the season with sweet caramel malt. Orange peel, juniper berries, ginger root, cardamom and cloves are added for spiciness. We use honey in the fermentation process, which raises the ABV without producing too much heat from the alcohol content.

19. Smuttynose Brewing Company | Smuttynose Winter Ale

·        Portsmouth, NH

·        Smuttynose Winter Ale is a full-bodied, amber beer brewed with a special Trappist ale yeast. Stylistically reminiscent of a Belgian abbey double, it features fruity aromas and flavors, balanced by soft Crystal hops. Warming, mellow and pleasantly complex, Smuttynose Winter Ale is your perfect cold weather companion.

20. Spoetzl Brewery | Shiner Cheer

·        Shiner, TX

·        Happy Holidays from the "Little Brewery" in Shiner, TX. We hope you enjoy your Shiner Cheer, an Old World Dunkelweizen brewed with Texas peaches and roasted pecans. The malty flavors of this dark wheat ale are enhanced through the use of malted barley and wheat. And Kräusening ensures a smoothness that makes the subtle peach and pecan flavors all the more satisfying. May your days be merry and bright and your Shiner be cold. Prosit!

21. Starr Hill Brewing Company | The Gift

·        Crozet, VA

·        A German-style Hellerbock with a few twists, The Gift is Starr Hill’s holiday offering. The beautiful golden color only hints at the fire inside. Made with two-row and Munich malts and balanced with German noble hops, The Gift is the perfect accompaniment to any holiday event or festivity.

22. The Bruery | 4 Calling Birds

·        Orange County, CA

·        Spiced Strong Dark Ale. The Twelve Days of Christmas series continues! We took inspiration from the traditional winter warmer for our fourth verse, integrating gingerbread spices into a robust dark ale. Notes of licorice & banana bread mingle with dark fruit, molasses and bitter chocolate for a perfect cold weather sipper!

23. Bell’s Brewery | Christmas Ale

·        Kalamazoo, MI

·        The basic inspiration for Bell's Christmas Ale was to create a sessionable holiday beer, using locally grown malt, which would stand apart from the array of spiced winter warmers that are typically introduced this time of year. In contrast to many other seasonals, Christmas Ale doesn't contain any spices: all of the dry, toasted notes & subtle toffee flavors come from the 100% Michigan-grown barley, custom malted by Briess Malting, while a blend of hops from Michigan & the Pacific Northwest lend earthy, herbal aromas. At 5.5% ABV, it stands as a smooth, highly drinkable beer intended to complement holiday menus, not overshadow them.

24. Port City Brewing Company | Tidings

·        Alexandria, VA

·        Tidings Ale is a strong Belgian style blond ale is brewed with local Maryland wildflower honey and Virginia wheat. These special ingredients store away the flavor and essence of summer, and later warm us during the cold winter months. It is gently spiced with coriander, cardamom, fresh ginger and grains of paradise. This strong holiday ale is meant for sipping and sharing with friends and family. We hope this limited production beer brings tidings of cheer to you and yours during the holiday season!

Pride of Louisiana.

25. Abita Brewing Company | Christmas Ale

·        Abita Springs, LA

·        Abita Christmas Ale (November - December) rounds out our calendar. Each year at the Abita Brewery we craft a special dark ale for the holiday season. The recipe changes each year so that Abita Christmas Ale is always the perfect gift. Its spicy character is excellent with traditional holiday foods such as gingerbread or spiced nuts. Try some blue cheese or a creamy Camembert with a Christmas Ale.

As I said at the top, this is not a comprehensive list. These days, it seems that every brewery (or almost every brewery for that matter) make a holiday spiced ale/winter warmer/Christmas Ale that they release as their seasonal this time of year. In fact, if you go to a specialty beer store near you, you could probably populate a 25 Beers of Christmas list of your own that contained 25 completely different brews than the ones I've listed… perhaps even twice over. I will go into what makes them so delicious and so special in later blog post, but for the purposes of this article, just know that they are all delicious, and they are special. I highly recommend them.

This is a beer advent calendar. Pretty straight forward.

Here’s to craft-brewed happiness… Cheers!

Beer on the Thanksgiving Table?

Be thankful for great beer!

There are many different focuses that people have when it comes to Thanksgiving. Some think of family and friends. Some think of football. Some think of nothing more than a day off of work. But whatever aspect of the Thanksgiving holiday you tend to focus on, a universal emphasis for all of our holiday planning is food. Thanksgiving calls for a large spread of delicious food and large groups of people to share it with. Needless to say, some people take the food aspect of Thanksgiving very seriously.

This presents a problem. Many of us have very rigid ideas of what food is appropriate to serve during these large holiday feasts and what food is verboten. Generally speaking, proper etiquette and traditional values teach us that beer is one of these verboten items that is fine for before and after dinner activities, but should never be served with the meal. 

Take it to the streets brothers.

It should come as no surprise to you avid readers that I completely disagree with this majority opinion. First of all, the bubbles caused by the beer’s carbonation literally scrub your palate and allow your taste buds to battle through some of the amazing flavors typically found in your Thanksgiving feast. Additionally, craft beer is more versatile than any other beverage on the planet, so it allows for a veritable cornucopia of pairing options to perfectly complement every item on your Thanksgiving table, no matter what they are. Don’t believe me? Give some of these suggestions a try and taste for yourself:

Turkey

The centerpiece. The focal point, around which your entire feast revolves, turkey pairs beautifully with a wide variety of beers styles: French bières de gardes, Belgian dubbels, saisons, and amber lagers such as German märzens and dunkels. Some great choices for you to consider are The Lost Abbey’s Avant Garde Ale from San Marcos, CA or Matt Brewing Company’s Saranac Lake Effect Lager from Utica, NY.

Stuffing

The one thing I've noticed about stuffing (or dressing for some of you) is that it is different wherever you go. They are often specific to both region and family tradition and though they usually contain sage, onions and celery, there is very little else that is common. The beer pairing solution will vary along with the type of stuffing you’re serving:

If you’re serving traditional bread stuffing, I recommend a saison, such as Boulevard Brewing Company’s Tank 7 Farmhouse Ale from Kansas City, MO or The Bruery’s Saison Rue from Orange County, CA.

If you’re serving oyster stuffing, pair it with a dry Irish stout like Starr Hill Brewing Company’s Dark Starr Stout from Crozet, VA or North Coast Brewing Company’s Old No. 38 Stout from Fort Bragg, CA.

If you’re stuffing is a sausage-based stuffing, choose a dark lager like Anchor Brewing’s Bock Beer from San Francisco, CA or an American strong ale like Stone Brewing Company’s Arrogant Bastard Ale from Escondido, CA.

Looks like quite a spread.

Roasted Zucchini and Squash

The vegetables merit a pairing too, particularly the hearty and buttery ones that are often served as a vegetarian alternative to turkey. Zucchini and squash go great with Belgian-style tripels, hefeweizens, saisons, and bières de gardes. Tröegs Brewing Company’s DreamWeaver Wheat from Hershey, PA, Green Flash Brewing Company’s Le Freak from San Diego, CA, or Victory Brewing Company’s Sunrise Weissbier from Downingtown, PA would be excellent choices.

Cranberry Sauce

Whether its cranberry sauce made with care and meticulous attention to detail, or the infamous cranberry sauce cylinder from a can, you’ll find that the orange and coriander notes from a Belgian witbier perfectly complement it. A few delicious options include Allagash Brewing Company’s White from Portland, ME or Avery Brewing Company’s White Rascal from Boulder, CO.

Mashed Potatoes

Notice the “e” at the end. Old joke, I know.

Mashed potatoes, themselves, don’t have a lot of flavor, but they are often loaded with “stuff.” My favorite flavor accents for potatoes have always been Parmesan cheese and garlic, which partner very well with darker brown ales and porters. Sierra Nevada Brewing Company’s Tumbler Autumn Brown Ale from Chico, CA, Great Lakes Brewing Company’s Edmund Fitzgerald from Cleveland, OH, Dominion Brewing Company’s Baltic Porter from Dover, DE, and Smuttynose Brewing Company’s Robust Porter from Portsmouth, NH will complete this course of the feast brilliantly.

Yams/Sweet Potatoes

Another commonly found staple of the Thanksgiving table is sweet potatoes, which are frequently prepared with lots of butter and winter spices. Yams tend to pair well with dubbels, dopplebocks or Belgian strong ales. Look for New Belgium Brewing Company’s Abbey from Fort Collins, CO, Tröegs Brewing Company’s Tröegenator Double Bock from Hershey, PA, or Dogfish Head’s Raison D'Être from Milton, DE.

A perfect compliment.

Pumpkin Pie

My personal favorite, especially when served with vanilla ice cream, pumpkin pie has a massive flavor, so it can challenge a beer with a massive flavor. Don’t be afraid to pair massive with massive; you almost have to in order to ensure that one flavor doesn't overpower the other. Plus, there is nothing quite like a massive flavor power struggle on your palate. For this course, I recommend Brewery Ommegang’s Three Philosophers from Cooperstown, NY or Bell’s Brewery’s Expedition Stout from Kalamazoo, MI.

Other Things to Consider

It’s important to remember not to allow this stuff to overwhelm you. You can easily become obsessed with pairing, and if you let it, it will suck all of the fun out of Thanksgiving. The reality is that with the number of different foods and different flavors and aromas going on, it is practically impossible to get it 100% right.

You can make pairing on Thanksgiving as easy or as complicated as you want. If you want simple, get three beers to serve: something to pair with appetizers, something to pair with the main feast (most likely something Belgian to complement the poultry), and something sweet to pair with dessert. Look for like flavors. If your dessert is chocolaty, a chocolate beer would be a good choice. Then again, a kriek (cherry lambic) would also be interesting to pair with chocolate. Be creative and apply the common sense test.

Delicious. That's all I can say.

Also, ask for help. In today’s interwebs and social media-driven world, advice and suggestions are literally a few mouse clicks away. Most of the suggestions I've laid out for you today were borrowed from smart beer minds, courtesy of the interwebs. If I have failed to completely satisfy your thirst for knowledge, do your own research, or simply ask someone who is “in the know.” You don’t have to go it alone.

Finally, you’ll find that, throughout this blog post, I have made recommendations of Belgian, French, and German style beers to pair with various Thanksgiving foods. Because I value the whole “made in the U.S.A.” mantra, all of the beers I have suggested are made here in the States. You can seek authentic beers in these styles from their native homelands if you choose, but just so you know, their American counterparts are just as good, if not better in some cases, and readily available. There. I've made my pitch.

One Last Appeal

Please, please, please, PLEASE… don’t go get a suitcase of Budweiser tall boys or any other corn-based yellow fizzy industrial pilsner lager-like beer. To put it in perspective, drinking big beer products at Thanksgiving is the equivalent of eating a turkey sandwich with slices of Oscar Meyer turkey and American cheese on Wonderbread with potato chips on the side at Thanksgiving. If that is your idea of Thanksgiving dinner, I suppose it would pair well with big beer (though I still don’t endorse it). If, however, you plan on laying out a traditional Thanksgiving feast, treat your beer with the same respect as you do your food.

Here’s to craft-brewed happiness… Cheers! (and Happy Thanksgiving)

The Thanksgiving Story... of Beer

Have you ever wondered, like I have, whether the Pilgrims drank beer at the first Thanksgiving? Or perhaps what other type of interesting roles beer may have played in the Thanksgiving story? You could research it on the interwebs, and you would find a treasure trove of useful and not so useful tid bits to both enlighten and confuse you to no end. Or, you could continue reading this blog post, in which I will attempt to answer your questions, based on my own research of the endless cascades of information the interwebs has to offer. This is of course, like all of the posts found on this blog, one beer-obsessed blogger’s opinion. Let’s begin.

A very valid question.

 

Like so many attempts to define the role of beer throughout history, this one falls into the category of “it’s difficult to say for sure.” Record keeping, or more accurately a lack thereof, is once again betraying those of us who seek the truth today. We’ve all heard the story that the Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock, rather than their actual destination of Virginia, because they were out of beer. One diary entry indicates:

 

“We could not now take time for further search or consideration, our victuals being much spent, especially our beer.”

 

Obviously, the question you have to ask yourself, based on this excerpt, is “without beer, would there have even been a Thanksgiving in the first place?”

 

But for every claim of diary entries, usually the diary of the captain of the Mayflower, suggesting a lack of beer caused the Pilgrims to make landfall early, there are also indications that the entire story was concocted by BIG BEER in order to sell more beer. So let’s stop looking for the smoking gun for a second and examine what we know about the Pilgrims and their voyage.

 

Been there bro. Been there.

The first question I asked myself is “Did the Pilgrims actually drink beer in the first place?” After all, they were religious puritans who were fleeing oppression in England. As easy as it is to assume that they wouldn’t drink due to religious beliefs, I think that the answer is actually yes. Bottom line – water was not safe to drink back then. Wine and beer were what people drank – to live, particularly on long sea voyages and when trying to eke out an existence in a new place.

 

So if they did drink beer, what kind of beer would it have been? Again, consider the facts. This adventure started in 1600s England. Based on the beer timeline, we know that most of your traditional English beers (porters, stout porters, pale ales and IPAs) weren’t invented yet. The closest contemporary style to what I’m assuming they would’ve had is some sort of bitter ale. Also, keep in mind that it was probably a small beer, or beer brewed with low gravity, because a) it was common at the time and b) higher gravity means more sugar, which means higher likelihood of spoiling. They didn’t understand the science at the time, but they did know that weaker beer didn’t spoil as quickly, which was particularly important when traveling across oceans in a wooden ship.

 

Then, of course, there is this business of the Pilgrims being dumped off on Plymouth Rock due to low beer supplies. Most people who make this claim point to the diary of the Mayflower’s captain, Christopher Jones, as the proof. Unfortunately, as far as I can tell, Captain Jones either didn’t keep a diary, or it was lost, because nobody has actually ever seen it. The diary entries that we do have, that indicate beer supply problems, weren’t written until years after the actual events.

 

You never want to show up empty handed.

Here’s what we do know. The Mayflower didn’t leave England on time. It was supposed to set sail in the spring with its sister ship, the Speedwell. At first they were delayed due to debt negotiation problems, and then, when they finally did get underway, the Speedwell began to take on water. They turned both ships around, left the Speedwell in England, crammed everyone from both ships onto the Mayflower, filled the remaining space on the ship with as many supplies as would fit, and set sail for Virginia on September 6th. Imagine this for a second. Yes, they were probably well below comfortable levels on provisions, but they were also racing against Mother Nature to get to their destination before winter. When they reached the Americas on November 9th, they knew they were in the wrong spot, but as House Stark would say, winter was coming. I agree that the “running out of beer” theory is better storytelling, but it’s much more likely in this blogger’s opinion that the real reason wasn’t that they were out of beer, but rather that they were out of time.

 

Another popular tale, often told with the above “running out of beer” story, is that the first building the Pilgrims built in Plymouth was a brewery. Not likely. They had just spent the better part of two months on a ship, winter was upon them, and people were starting to die. The first structures they built were shelters – four of them, in order to protect the 102 settlers who made landfall. In fact, of those 102 settlers, only 45 survived the first winter. I find it very unlikely that anybody’s priority would’ve been a brewery.

 

We shall call it Thanksgiving. And it shall be
celebrated throughout the land. And we will all drink
beer and get loaded! AMERICA!!!

It’s also unlikely that the first Thanksgiving included beer. The famous dinner with the Native Americans, which was actually a three-day long harvest festival, occurred in October of 1621, long after the Mayflower had left and the supplies from England were gone. There is evidence that the Pilgrims planted barley during the first year in Plymouth, but there is no indication that it was used to brew beer, and most likely wasn’t since barley wasn’t grown in the New World in large enough amounts to support a brewing operation until the late 1700s. It is possible that they drank beer during the first official Thanksgiving celebration feast two years later in July of 1623, as more colonists and more supplies would’ve arrived by then. Beer probably became more and more common with every subsequent celebration of Thanksgiving, particularly once the founders took to growing barley and brewing beer in America. And of course, when George Washington proclaimed the first nation-wide Thanksgiving celebration in America, you can bet he served beer.

 

So what have we learned? It is likely that the Pilgrims drank beer, though certainly more for health reasons than celebratory reasons. It is, however, unlikely that lack of beer was the primary reason for the Pilgrims landing on Plymouth Rock as opposed to continuing on to their destination of Virginia. It is also unlikely that their first building was a brewery, and it is equally unlikely that they drank beer with the Native Americans during the Thanksgiving harvest festival in 1621. Finally, it is likely that beer played a significant role in early observations and celebrations of the Thanksgiving holiday in America.

 

Here’s to craft-brewed happiness… Cheers!

Crank-up the Heat

Mmmm... spicy...

The calendar page has turned once again, and it’s officially November. The leaves are literally hanging on by threads and the crisp autumn air is starting to turn cold. This is a perfect opportunity to start talking about an emerging beer style that can really warm you up… chili beer.

 

Chili beer is loosely defined as a basic light colored ale (can be a lager as well) with various hot pepper juices, oils, or actual peppers added to it. Jalapeño chilies are the most common peppers used. Hotness can range from a subtle spiciness to palate scorching, with the latter being far less common.

 

There is evidence, thanks to the crafty brewers over at Dogfish Head, that chili peppers were used in beer making as early as 1,200 BC in present day Honduras. Chemical analysis of pottery fragments found there revealed that the Aztec civilization made a chocolate celebration beer using chocolate, honey and chili. Of course, Dogfish Head then made a version of the ancient brew of their own using cocoa powder, cocoa nibs, honey, chilies and a fragrant tree seed called annatto. They call this beer Theobroma (food of the gods), and it is available at a specialty beer store near you (assuming it is in season and you are within their distribution range).

These are not the chili peppers in the beer

Despite these early records of adding chilies to beer, chili beer is considered by most to be a new modern American beer creation on the beer timelines and style trees. In most examples, the beer starts off sweet in taste with just a hint of acidity on the back end. The heat of the chili doesn’t usually hit until a few moments later, and depending on the type and quantity of peppers that were used, can be quite noticeable. It’s because of this heat that most brewers pay just as much attention to the sweet aspects of the beer as they do the chili, and add other ingredients to enhance that sweet side, such as chocolate, honey, or more grain.

 

Food of the gods

Unfortunately, chili beer can be difficult to find. There are a handful of breweries out there that make a chili beer, but availability and lack of distribution severely hinder our ability to readily find them. I mentioned Theobroma earlier, and in April when they release it, it is pretty easy to find in the mid-Atlantic region, as well as other places too, but for the rest of the year, finding it can be a challenge. If you are able to get some, I highly recommend it. The chili is very subtle, and only appears after you drink, almost as though it’s on a delay. The chocolate is definitely the rock star in the beer, and at 9.0% ABV, it’s a very enjoyable brew.

 

Another good chili beer that is relatively easy to find is Samuel Adams The Vixen. The Vixen is a chocolate chili bock that, much like Theobroma, starts out sweet and chocolaty and ends with a spicy heat. The brewers use dark cocoa nibs and roasted barley to obtain the sweetness, and then add chilies complimented with cinnamon to give you the warmth and spice. I also recommend this one, particularly while pairing with a desert at your Thanksgiving feast (more on that later).

 

Aint she sweet?

 

Other chili beers that I know of, but haven’t had so I can’t recommend them, are Chipotle Ale by Rogue Ales in Newport, Oregon, Lips of Faith – Cocoa Mole by New Belgium Brewing in Fort Collins, Colorado, A Bit of Heat by Bell’s Brewery in Kalamazoo, Michigan, Smokabaga by Cigar City Brewing in Tampa, Florida, and Chili Lager by Tommyknocker Brewery in Idaho Springs, Colorado. There are countless others out there, but availability and distribution are the keys.

 

So now you have another way to keep warm as the temperatures start to dip. Don’t be intimidated or closed-minded about something like chili being in your beer, which seems like it has no business being there. Give it a try. They really are quite delicious.

 

Here's to craft-brewed happiness... Cheers!