{"id":8937,"date":"2021-12-29T22:43:48","date_gmt":"2021-12-30T04:43:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/?p=8937"},"modified":"2022-04-14T12:49:44","modified_gmt":"2022-04-14T18:49:44","slug":"12-beers-of-christmas-2021-11-greater-good-gingerbread-ale","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/golf\/lifestyle\/8937\/12-beers-of-christmas-2021-11-greater-good-gingerbread-ale","title":{"rendered":"12 Beers of Christmas 2021 – 11: Greater Good Gingerbread Ale"},"content":{"rendered":"\"gg<\/a>\n

For a day where I barely moved from my chair, it seemed pretty busy around here. Momentously, because of the recent exposure to our COVID-positive granddaughter, my wife and I took a home antigen test: negative. We\u2019ll take it again tomorrow night and head to a local hospital on Friday for a PCR test.<\/p>\n

\"gg<\/a>So far so good. Later some Brattleboro Literary Festival<\/a> committee members had a Zoom holiday cocktail party, and while we were talking about all the great books we received for Christmas, out came the Gingerbread Ale from the Greater Good Imperial Brew Co. of Worcester, Massachusetts.<\/p>\n

Imperial? A bold name for a brewery, when the term itself is a bit vague in the beer world. True, there have been Imperial Stouts since the late 18th century, a style of English stout supposedly ramped up in potency to suit the tastes of Catherine the Great of Russia.<\/p>\n

But it wasn\u2019t until the 21st century that breweries began adding the tag \u201cImperial\u201d to any beer style to indicate an increase, even a doubling of ABV levels for that particular kind of beer. It\u2019s not a terribly precise labeling, but it gets the notion across\u2014if it\u2019s Imperial, it\u2019s going to be big and bad ass.<\/p>\n

When microbial geneticist Paul Wengender was contemplating founding a brewery, he followed his own wont\u2014having one big (high ABV) beer a night. But he wasn\u2019t fond of the alcohol burn he often detected in such beers. So he tried coming up with beers loaded with flavor and alcohol without the heat that high ABV beers can bring.<\/p>\n

\"gg<\/a>Greater Good began marketing its high ABV beers in 2016, calling itself not only Worcester\u2019s only all-Imperial brewery, but the country\u2019s.<\/p>\n

Not an idle boast. There\u2019s not a single beer listed in the brewery\u2019s roster\u2014and there are quite a few of them\u2014that comes in under 8% ABV. More than a few are higher. Gingerbread Ale is at the \u201clow\u201d end, a mere 8%.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s true that\u2019s there no sense of high ABV burn with the beer, which may be kind of a warning signal in itself. (Remember that the brewery founder might drink one of these a night.) The beer is fairly clear for an unfiltered brew, a medium brown with a light and quickly dissipating head. The ginger leaps right out of the glass, along with caramel and molassas notes. The palate follows suit, with the ginger and cinnamon jumping to the spicy fore, leaving a real finishing tingle in the mouth.<\/p>\n

What I like most about it is the rousing ginger smack without any overweening sweetness. But I actually kind of miss the alcohol burn. It makes the beer seem to lack a little character, fading away a bit between the first taste and the finish.<\/p>\n

Still, it rouses the curiosity, and I\u2019ll look forward to trying more Greater Good beers. If one at a time.<\/p>\n

\"gg<\/a>Name: Gingerbread Ale
\nBrewer: Greater Good Imperial Brewing, Worcester, Massachusetts
\nStyle: Spiced Imperial Brown Ale
\nABV: 8%
\nAvailability: Seasonally, in MA, RI, PA, NY, NH
\nFor More Information: www.greatergoodimperials.com<\/p>\n

[December 29, 2021]<\/em><\/p>\n

< 12 Beers of Christmas 10: Southern Tier Frosted Sugar Cookie<\/a>
\n12 Beers of Christmas 12: Mikkeller’s Santa’s Little Helper<\/a> ><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For a day where I barely moved from my chair, it seemed pretty busy around here. Momentously, because of the… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":8942,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[939,627,18],"tags":[603,975741,1002722,1013441,989644,1030134,1030135,1030136,749,1134],"class_list":["post-8937","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-beer-on-tap","category-tap-beer-of-the-week","category-lifestyle","tag-massachusetts","tag-12-days-of-christmas","tag-12-beers-of-christmas","tag-spiced-imperial-dark-ale","tag-worcester","tag-greater-good-imperial-brew-co","tag-gingerbread-ale","tag-paul-wengender","tag-christmas","tag-imperial"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2021\/12\/gg-label.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8937","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=8937"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8937\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8961,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8937\/revisions\/8961"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8942"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8937"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8937"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8937"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}