12 Beers of Christmas 2018 Reprise

[Dec. 20, 2019]–I’ve polished off the last of my Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale 12-pack, I’m about to tip another bottle of Deschutes Brewery Jubelale and I confess I’ve already been sampling some of the beers that will make up the 2019 edition of The 12 Beers of Christmas.

The aforementioned have already been, well, celebrated in years past, as well they might be. They usually tip me off that it’s time to kick holiday season into gear, though I’ve been slow to rouse this year. I never even wrapped up last year, as has been my wont, and lo and behold, here we are again.

For the bewildered, I’ve been drinking a dozen (okay, sometimes a baker’s dozen) of holiday beers, winter warmers and the like around the Christmas holidays, and writing them up—sometimes in consecutive days, sometimes less promptly—each year since 2012. I usually manage to get it done before the actual Twelfth Night (Epiphany, January 6 in 2020).

I always kick things off with Anchor’s Our Special Ale and its ever-changing recipe, but I always warm up with those two other west coast classics, which remain pretty much unchanged after all these years.

Deschutes does re-do the Jubelale label every year, calling on local artists to create a work that winds up on the label and packaging. Now living in Bend, Mark Räda is originally from Minnesota, and therefore naturally a fisherman and outdoor guy, reflected in his work the brewery selected for 2019.

It dawned on me last year when I had Berkshire Brewing’s Holidale that the Massachusetts brewery changes up its recipe annually, too, and I’m sure there are others who keep mixing it up. Fine with me either way; there’s nothing wrong with sticking with a winner.

There were really nothing but winners in the 2018 list. Sure, I liked some more than others–the first and last, Anchor and De Dolle Stille Nacht, would take my top honors—but I wouldn’t turn down any of them if poured again. I suppose Hermit Thrush’s Dark by 4:30 was the outlier as the only sour beer on the list, but no complaints there.

A 6% ABV beer was a piker among the many heavy hitters this year: 11 Pipers at 11%, Holidale at 11.5%, Stille Nacht at 12%, the Prairie Christmas Bomb at 13%, Samichlaus at 14% and Jule Mælk at 15%. Good thing I wasn’t always drinking alone. Compared with all these bruisers the low end 5.5% To Øl Santastique almost came off as a session beer.

Holiday beers are not necessarily about alcoholic heft and heat, but they’re certainly not out of place, either, and they usually set up a certain amount of anticipation. But Anchor’s spiced ale does fine at a more modest 6.9%—which at any other time of the year would be a plenty sturdy beer as is.

So, we’ve sampled 84 different beers over the years, all of them linked to below. Twelve more will give us 96, and it would probably be a shame to stop shy of 100. Sound like incentive for 2020 to me.

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The grand roundup:

The 12 Beers of Christmas

2018