I didn’t really expect to wrap up this year’s 12 Beers of Christmas with a hazy IPA from a Massachusetts nanobrewery, but who could resist the name? Especially as I’ve managed to finish up on the actual 12th Day of Christmas. Tomorrow is Epiphany, or Three Kings Day, and some traditions hold that taking your Christmas decorations down after Twelfth Night will bring bad luck.
We still have all our decorations up, and I usually try to resist taking them down as far into January as possible. What can I say? I like the lights. Besides, I figure the bad luck already reached a peak in early November.
But the tree will come down and wind up in some kind of graveyard. The last couple of years we’ve offered ours to a neighbor who likes to put used trees out for her goats. Good recycling.
Mark Avery named his brewery Two Weeks Notice because once his wife bought him a homebrewing kit he became obsessed with the idea of bailing out on his desk job and opening a brewery. It eventually happened, and Mark took as his partner the boss he was handing in his notice to.
So there’s kind of a reverse mindset at work at the brewery. As a note says on the website, “Here at TWN, we want you to be a quitter. Throw in the towel on whatever isn’t feeding your life, whatever isn’t advancing your dream and whatever it is you should walk away from. It’s quitting time folks, join us for something different.”
Christmas Tree Graveyard has come around seasonally since 2020, with a couple of variations adding pineapple one year, cranberry another. On Facebook the brewery tries to make a case that drinkers should, “Think West Coast meets East Coast with our TWN flare,” but to my mind it’s a straight hazy New England IPA. Unfortunately, one of my least favorite styles these days.
The appearance is one thing. I’m a brilliant and clear IPA kind of guy, not that fond of dull hazes—in this case, looking like a glass of pear juice. (Lynn was even bleaker: “It looks like it came from someone with a urinary tract infection.”)
Did that stop us? Of course not, and I actually found the beer pretty tasty, a cut above many NE IPAs I’ve had lately. It’s hopped with Chinook and Simcoe hops; Lynn thought the beer smelled of apricot, and I thought she was right on, with some tropical fruit notes as well. Beyond that there were no great surprises, though it would be nice to imagine a certain dry pine character as well. Hazy IPA fans shouldn’t be disappointed to find some under their Christmas trees. Before the latter are hauled away, naturally.
So that’s it. It’s been the usual wild ride for the 2024 12 Beers of Christmas. Hope all of you who have tagged along have enjoyed it, and that you have as good a new year as possible. Here’s to some fine new beer discoveries in 2025. We may need them.
I do have a few other contenders hanging around in the fridge that didn’t quite make this year’s roster. But, in the spirit of Two Weeks Notice, I quit.
Name: Christmas Tree Graveyard
Brewer: Two Weeks Notice Brewing Company, West Springfield, Massachusetts
Style: New England IPA
ABV: 6.6%
Availability: Seasonally, in MA
For More Information: twoweeksnoticebrewing.com
[January 5, 2025]
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