{"id":8279,"date":"2019-12-24T23:13:28","date_gmt":"2019-12-25T05:13:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/?p=8279"},"modified":"2019-12-30T22:06:23","modified_gmt":"2019-12-31T04:06:23","slug":"12-beers-of-christmas-2019-4-to-ol-santas-secret","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/golf\/lifestyle\/8279\/12-beers-of-christmas-2019-4-to-ol-santas-secret","title":{"rendered":"12 Beers of Christmas 2019 – 4: To \u00d8l Santa\u2019s Secret"},"content":{"rendered":"\"to<\/a>\n

To \u00d8l is Danish for Two Beers, which seems apt, since I tried two from the once-nomadic brewery last year (Santastique and Jule M\u00e6lk<\/a>) and then went ahead and had two again this year, too, Santa\u2019s Secret and Frost Bite. But if you could actually find the beers it would then be easy to fill up an entire year\u2019s 12 Beers of Christmas solely from brews created by To \u00d8l.<\/p>\n

They make a bunch. Aside from the four just mentioned, there\u2019s Santa Gose F&%# It All, Shameless Santa, Snowball, Rudolph Under the Radar, Fuck Art Winter Is Coming, Blizzard (In a Beer Mug), Driving Home From X-mas, 3Xmas, 1 ton of\u2026 Christmas, and probably a few others I missed. The brewery is nothing if not prolific.<\/p>\n

I said once-nomadic, because To \u00d8l is now producing out of its own brewery, which they\u2019re calling To \u00d8l City, though it\u2019s actually in Svinninge, about an hour east of Copenhagen. According to Nick Anderson of Shelton Brothers, which imports To \u00d8l\u2019s beers to about 45 states, the first shipment of beers from the new brewery should arrive in the U.S. in March.<\/p>\n

\"Frost<\/a>

Frost Bite in the glass at left, and the bottle next to a can of Santa’s Secret<\/p><\/div>\n

To \u00d8l did a lot of brewing at De Proefbrouwerij in Belgium, including the two beers I had tonight. My son, Mike, son-in-law, Glenn, and I had the Frost Bite in relative quiet before the very house became prolific\u2014eighteen of us together to gobble some pizza, trim the tree and exchange presents among relatives. It was a night of teeming energy and a lot of laughs.<\/p>\n

The Frost Bite is billed as an American pale ale, comes in at 6% ABV, but is brewed with orange peel and pine needles. None of us could perceive the latter, Glenn thought he detected some orange peel. Mostly we thought it was a pleasant pale ale, which, despite hopping with Aurora, Citra, Tettnanger, Simcoe and Amarillo, comes off as distinctly malt-accented.<\/p>\n

It was that that made me answer an admittedly hesitant yes to Glenn\u2019s question: \u201cDo you think it\u2019s worth the trip across the ocean?\u201d<\/p>\n

Santa\u2019s Secret, however, was the featured performer of the night. Despite the seven glasses shown below, I think almost our entire cast of characters tried it, even the minors, and to varying degrees most seemed to like it. Definitely deserving of an ocean crossing.<\/p>\n

\"Ready,<\/a>

Ready, set, go….<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cTo \u00d8l brewed it for the first time last year and it was a big success,\u201d said Anderson. “The mix of crazy ingredients and the crazy name and that it\u2019s a double brown ale just make it seem like Christmas in a can.\u201d<\/p>\n

The beer is actually an adaption of a To \u00d8l brew called Mochaccino Messiah, a 7% ABV beer made with chocolate malts, some lactose and espresso coffee. Santa\u2019s Secret adds some cinnamon and cardamom to the mix, which somehow ups the ABV a percentage point.<\/p>\n

Our tasters found all these flavors–coffee, chocolate, cardamom and cinnamon, but some mentioned molasses, maple syrup, mace. One found it tart, another quite sweet, another a little boozy.<\/p>\n

According to the brewery, the beer itself is Santa\u2019s Secret. Without a good jolt of caffeine, how else is he going to keep going on Christmas night? Even if he is Scandinavian. As the note on the can puts it: \u201cSanta is a bad ass: riding reindeer, climbing chimneys and still being the kids\u2019 number one hero. What is his secret to success? Buckets of mochaccinos. Double shot.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"To_Ol_logo\"<\/a>Name: Santa\u2019s Secret
\nBrewer: To \u00d8l, Copenhagen, Denmark (though brewed at De Proefbrouwerij, Lochristi, Belgium)
\nStyle: American brown ale
\nABV: 8%
\nAvailability: Shelton Brothers now distributes to 45 states and Washington D.C. Check their \u201cLocate Our Products<\/a>\u201d list to see if the beer might be near you.
\nFor More Information: https:\/\/toolbeer.dk<\/p>\n

[December 24, 2019]<\/em><\/p>\n

< 12 Beers of Christmas 3: Stony Creek Winter Weight<\/a>
\n12 Beers of Christmas 5: Four Quarters Gifts of the Magi<\/a> ><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To \u00d8l is Danish for Two Beers, which seems apt, since I tried two from the once-nomadic brewery last year… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":8282,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[939,627,18],"tags":[1029824,748,1029825,749,1029826,676069,1029827,708480,975741,975802,1002722,1016659,1016660,1016796],"class_list":["post-8279","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-beer-on-tap","category-tap-beer-of-the-week","category-lifestyle","tag-santas-secret","tag-belgium","tag-svinninge","tag-christmas","tag-nick-anderson","tag-christmas-beers","tag-frost-bite","tag-shelton-brothers","tag-12-days-of-christmas","tag-de-proefbrouwerij","tag-12-beers-of-christmas","tag-copenhagen","tag-denmark","tag-to-ol"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2019\/12\/to-ol-ss.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8279","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=8279"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8279\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8298,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8279\/revisions\/8298"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8282"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8279"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8279"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8279"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}