{"id":4928,"date":"2013-12-23T23:03:41","date_gmt":"2013-12-24T05:03:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/?p=4928"},"modified":"2014-01-14T17:02:51","modified_gmt":"2014-01-14T23:02:51","slug":"12-beers-of-christmas-10-mikkeller-hoppy-lovin-christmas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/golf\/lifestyle\/4928\/12-beers-of-christmas-10-mikkeller-hoppy-lovin-christmas","title":{"rendered":"12 Beers of Christmas 10: Mikkeller Hoppy Lovin\u2019 Christmas"},"content":{"rendered":"

I wound up doing bartender duty of sorts at the Wildwood Barbeque <\/a>Christmas bash tonight, a party for family and friends of what is currently rated the No. 1 restaurant in Hadley, Massachusetts on Trip Advisor.<\/p>\n

Full disclosure, I\u2019m part of the family equation, the restaurant owned and operated by my son-in-law and daughter. Here\u2019s Glenn Brunetti in action with some pizza dough in the air:<\/p>\n

\"Glenn<\/a>

Pizza in the air!<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Wildwood<\/a>

Smokin’ Que, Awesome Brews<\/p><\/div>\n

My wife is pitching in as a part-time bookkeeper, and even picked up an employee mug at the great groaning board affair. Least I could do was man the taps for a while. Good way to meet everyone anyway, and talk about beer a bit. I pitched in a bit before the opening in July and now Wildwood has eight craft beer taps, no crap beer. As the t-shirt at the right says:<\/p>\n

Bad timing for a promo, I guess, since the restaurant is closing for a two-week hiatus. So we ate as much as we could to counter excess inventory problems.<\/p>\n

The most popular pours of the night were Allagash White, Berkshire Brewing\u2019s Shabadoo Black & Tan (a blend of their Berkshire Ale and Drayman\u2019s Porter), and the Element Red Giant.<\/p>\n

There were no Christmas beers on tap, though, so I brought along the Mikkeller Hoppy Lovin\u2019 Christmas, and poured plenty of samples. The instant Wildwood verdict\u2014everyone loved it. Of the seven or so samplers, I think every one of them used the world \u201cdelicious\u201d to describe the beer.<\/p>\n

\"Hoppy<\/a>

Hoppy Lovin’ Christmas at the Wildwood Barbeque bash<\/p><\/div>\n

A big IPA brewed with ginger and pine needles, the HLC is a little like Sixpoint\u2019s Global Warmer<\/a>, though the latter has a sweeter, more nectar-like mouthfeel. HLC is smooth overall, but the hop profile has a pronounced citrus smack, and there\u2019s certainly some ginger tang, too. There\u2019s a piney hop note, but otherwise frankly little evidence of pine needles. Nice to know they\u2019re there, though.<\/p>\n

Nice to know Mikkeller is around, too, if tough to pin down. Started in 2005 in Denmark by Mikkel Borg Bjergs\u00f8 and Kristian Klarup Keller, the company is one of the small tribe of itinerant brewers, setting up shop in various brewhouses around the world, although in Mikkeller\u2019s case, most often in De Proefbrouwerij of Belgium.<\/p>\n

Keller has left the company to become a music journalist, but Bjergs\u00f8 plows on with wild inventiveness inspired by U.S. craft brewing. It seems like a new and acclaimed brew comes out every fifteen minutes, including some work in Vermont with the Hill Farmstead Brewery\u2014Daybreak, an Imperial Stout, and a Grassroots Brewing beer called Wheat is the New Hops, a wheat IPA fermented with Brettanomyces.<\/p>\n

\"Rod<\/a>

Happy birthday, Rod Serling<\/p><\/div>\n

There are other Mikkeller Christmas beers, like Santa\u2019s Little Helper, and even alternate versions of Hoppy Lovin\u2019 Christmas, one conditioned in red wine barrels, another in Sauternes barrels.<\/p>\n

San Franciscans might have the easier time keeping track of this freneticism, since there\u2019s a Mikkeller Bar there, one of a few now scattered around the globe. (Although, according to the Mikkeller website, the San Francisco bar is closed on Christmas Day in honor of Rod Serling\u2019s birthday).<\/p>\n

Hoppy Lovin\u2019 Christmas is imported by the Shelton Brothers, as are many of the Mikkeller beers, but like many of them, it\u2019s probably an ephemeral thing, here today, gone tomorrow. If you run across one, buy two.\u00a0 [Dec. 23, 2013]<\/em><\/p>\n

Name: Hoppy Lovin\u2019 Christmas
\nBrewer: Mikkeller, Copenhagen, Denmark (though brewed at De Proefbrouwerij, Lochristi, Belgium
\nStyle: Double IPA
\nABV: 7.8%
\nAvailability: Winter seasonal, in Shelton Brothers network
\nFor More Information: http:\/\/mikkeller.dk\/<\/p>\n

< 12 Beers of Christmas 9: N\u00f6el des G\u00e9ants<\/a>
\n12 Beers of Christmas 11: Harpoon Winter Warmer ><\/a><\/p>\n\"Mikkeller<\/a>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I wound up doing bartender duty of sorts at the Wildwood Barbeque Christmas bash tonight, a party for family and… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":4930,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[939,627,18],"tags":[975767,975803,975768,975804,975794,975805,975795,633,975796,634,975797,748,975798,603,975799,708480,975800,975721,975801,975722,975802],"class_list":["post-4928","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-beer-on-tap","category-tap-beer-of-the-week","category-lifestyle","tag-sixpoint","tag-grassroots-brewing","tag-global-warmer","tag-mikkeller-bar","tag-trip-advisor","tag-rod-serling","tag-mikkeller","tag-vermont","tag-glenn-brunetti","tag-san-francisco","tag-jennifer-bedell-brunetti","tag-belgium","tag-hoppy-lovin-christmas","tag-massachusetts","tag-mikkel-borg-bjergso","tag-shelton-brothers","tag-kristian-klarup-keller","tag-wildwood-barbecue","tag-hill-farmstead","tag-hadley","tag-de-proefbrouwerij"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2013\/12\/Mik-HLC.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4928","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4928"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4928\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4947,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4928\/revisions\/4947"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4930"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}