Sean Suggests for December 2013

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Time to break out and strong for Christmas. Get some beers to share with the family and friends around the fire. Here are three excellent and diverse choices for the Christmas.

~LIGHT

Grand Teton / Coming Home Belgian Dubbel 7.5% ABV

“Brewed in the Belgian Dubbel tradition, this year’s Coming Home Holiday Ale is big and bold yet imminently drinkable. Coming Home 2013 features celebratory flavors of dark sugar and raisins and a spicy, dry finish. It was brewed with pale and brown malts plus special dark candi sugar. The sugar addition provides a sweet aroma and dark fruit flavors without the cloying thickness typical of all-malt brews. Coming Home 2013 was fermented with ale yeast from a Belgian Trappist monastery to add hints of nutmeg, clove and other holiday spices. At 7.5% ABV this is an ale to be savored, enjoyed with friends over a holiday meal or paired with flavorful cheeses.”

~MEDIUM

The Bruery / Six Geese A Laying 11.5% ABV

“6 Geese-A-Laying is the 6th beer in our “12 Days of Christmas” series and is a return to the more classic dark and toasty winter ale, following the
appropriately blonde 5 Golden Rings. Brewed with cape gooseberries, this malty ale displays notes of plums, dark cherry and bright, citrus-like flavors from the namesake berries. Delicious right now, but suitable for aging up to 6 years, upon the release of 12 Drummers Drumming”

~DARK

He’Brew / Jewbelation Reborn 17 17.0% ABV

“How could we hope to top last year’s Jewbelation Sweet 16 with its cupcakes, unicorns, & Satan’s Ferrari birthday cake? massive challenge. So for Year 17, we threw in a whole new dimension to our shtick – we built our very own brewery! After 17 years of contract brewing, our first Shmaltz Clifton Park batch emerged 17 months after the first draft of the business plan.”

Snarling Badger


I am actually shocked that there are not more beers named after the wily and strong badger but now there is the Grand Teton Snarling Badger Berliner Weisse
“In Berliner Weisse we think we’ve found the perfect style for our summer Cellar Reserve. This north German wheat beer is traditionally brewed and released very fresh. It has a light body from the wheat and refreshingly tart acidity that make it a perfect summer thirst-quencher. Its lemony tartness is provided by a secondary fermentation with lactobacillus, the same microorganism that’s responsible for yogurt’s tang. That tartness increases and improves with age, so the people of Berlin are known to buy extra bottles to bury in their gardens for two years or more.”

50 from 50 – Idaho

Idaho has some great craft brew. Unfortunately, not a lot of great craft brew distribution. Grand Teton has a larger territory and I picked up a DIPA that may have been past it’s prime. If I had drunk it a couple of weeks earlier, the review would probably be better.
idaho