Tag Archives: Christmas

The Case for Christmas Beer: One Curmudgeon’s Begrudging

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Great Lakes Christmas Beer Goggles

Great Lakes Christmas Beer Goggles

I have a well-documented disdain for Christmas beers, winter warmers, and other beers with cutsie holiday-inspired names like Silver Beers and Jingle Beers and Have Yourself a Beery Little Christmas. But around this time of year it is hard to avoid them. They take up half the craft beer cooler at my favorite corner store. The Bollywood music playing in the background adds a certain confusion to the scene, but the store owner certainly knows what brings in money.

Now well into my thirties, I understand that from Thanksgiving to December 25, and perhaps from well before, my life will be invaded by Christmas. The music I hear, the ads I see, the food and drink I buy, the clothes in stores, the shows at theatres, the urges to donate, the urges to buy, the insistence of want, the stupid shit people stick on their heads, cars, children, and pets, even the way people bid me farewell. After all these years, I’ve also come to terms with the fact that I’ll never be okay with it.

I’ll especially not be okay with the replacement of my favorite IPAs and… IPAs with The Nutcracker Wheat and Rudolph the Red Nosed Rainbeer. Because, let’s be honest: this curmudgeonliness has little to do with my personal religious beliefs and everything to do with what I want to drink after a day of playing retail Christmas Elf to dozens of customers, all equally pissed off that they have to spend their hard earned money on siblings they never really liked anyway. And that beer I want to drink is one made of water, grain, yeast, and hops. Please hold the nutmeg. Continue reading →

Christmas Beer in the Age of Aquarius

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Family tradition: taking bad pics of Grandma lighting the tree

Family tradition: taking bad pics of Grandma lighting the tree

If yours is like my family and watches National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation every year, you know it’s socially acceptable to use alcohol to get you through the holidays. Poor Clark Griswold doesn’t recognize it at first; it takes asking his father how he survived every year. His dad answers, “I had a lot of help from Jack Daniels.”

This line always bothered me, because I didn’t want to admit that my family events are better when moderately lit. But then, I also was disappointed when my dad told me there was no Santa, and I got over it. (But then I asked, and the Easter Bunny? and he said don’t push it kid.)

Regardless, I think it’s safe to say that in most families, alcohol plays an important role in bringing everyone together. Or at least that’s what I tell myself when my dad hands me the second beer of Christmas Eve afternoon.

Traditionally the holiday kicks-off around 3pm when we open the first IPA of the day and put the soundtrack to the musical Hair on the turntable. Because, I mean, fuck Bing Crosby; nothing says Christmas like “Aquarius.” About half a beer in we start crooning along while wrapping my mother’s presents. Continue reading →

Quick, Somebody Give Me a Christmas Cookie I Can Make in Twenty Minutes

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Cookies

Here are pictures of a lot of cookies I didn’t make.

I’d like you to know that I am not a total slouch at some aspects of Christmas. I like thinking up gift ideas, and I can wrap a mean present. My less-than-perfect pitch is balanced with caroling gusto. I’ve been planning dishes for Christmas Eve dinner for weeks now. But man, I’m bad at Christmas cookies.

Christmas cookies are one of those things, along with cards (and really, bless all those people who still send me Christmas cards, surely knowing that they are getting nothing in return), that I’m just bad at making myself do. My mom saved me a newspaper section that was completely comprised of cookie recipes. I have read it approximately twenty times without actually making any moves toward baking them myself. When my friend Mignon mailed me some whimsical sugar cookies (including one that, I’m pretty sure, was a teeny tiny albino dolphin), my first thought was, “Thank goodness. This buys me at least another two days.”

But let’s face it—it’s now or never. Help me out bakers: what’s your absolute easiest cookie recipe?

‘Twas the Beer Before Christmas

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Where's my #$%@ beer?!

‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the pub
Not a creature was drunk, all dry as dead shrubs.
The empties were stacked in the corner with care
In hopes the taxicabs soon would be there,
For regulars were nestled all snug in their booths,
Shouting out blasphemes and such things uncouth,
And my man with no lager and I with no ale
Had just started in on a sorrowful wail,
When out in the lot there arose such a clatter,
I stumbled from my stool to see what was the matter.
Away to the window I tripped like a drunk,
And fell on my face in a puddle of funk.
The moon on the hoods of our salt-coated cars
Gave the fuzzy impression of far-away stars,
When, what to my watery eyes should appear
But a Great Lakes semi truck and ten cases of beer!
With a red-faced old driver with an eye-winking tic,
I knew in a moment this was Santa’s schtick.
Quicker than UPS guys his deliverers ran
And he whistled and hooted and called to his men,
“Now Guinness, now Orval, now Sixpoint and Avery!
On Harpoon, on Yuengling, on Left Hand and Dundee!
To the top of the ramp to the back of the bar,
Then dash away, dash away, and bring my cigar!”
I drew back from the window, gaping in awe
When Santa appeared, spitting “Pshaw!”
He was dressed in a coverall, his head to his feet,
Though right ‘round his belly the zipper didn’t meet.
He had a broad face and two sticky-out ears
That turned red when he’d had a few too many beers.
He dismissed my wonder and went straight to work
Hooking up kegs and pulling pints with a smirk.
And laying a finger along side his beer
And giving a nod, out the front door he veered.
He sprang to his truck cab, to his men gave a whistle,
Who jumped in the truck with agility and hustle
I heard him exclaim, before I could think,
“Merry Christmas to all, and to all a tall drink!”

From Anheuser to Zymurgy, the Beer-Lover’s Christmas List

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Selfish? Give the gift of something you love!

Christmas is approaching, and if you don’t have a beer-lover to buy for, I have a list of beery gifts here good enough to turn any wine-lover to the light.

First of all, the books. As many of you know, I run a bookstore so, as many of you have now guessed, everyone in my family gets a book for Christmas. Here are a few of the beerlicious titles I’ll be handing out:

For the novices I’m looking at The Complete Beer Course: Boot Camp for Beer Geeks: From Novice to Expert in Twelve Tasting Classes by Joshua Bernstein. The self-described beer expert “demystifies the sudsy stuff, breaking down the elements that give each type its distinctively delicious flavor.”

For someone close whose level of cleanliness you trust

Charlie Papazian’s The Complete Joy of Homebrewing is an essential for any new brewers. This is the third edition, but the fourth isn’t coming out until after Christmas. Another new guide to brewing is called simply, How to Brew Beer by Bob Bridle. It’s a DK publication, which means it’ll be a pretty book, too. The Naked Brewer was recently put out by the ladies who wrote The Naked Pint, this a simple brewing guide companion to the Pint‘s tasting guide.

For the more experienced brewers: from the folks at CAMRA (Campaign for Real Ale) have out Brew Your Own British Real Ale by Graham Wheeler; and from the nut at Dogfish Head, Sam Calagione, Extreme Brewing: An Enthusiast’s Guide to Brewing Craft Beer at Home. Continue reading →