{"id":9823,"date":"2024-12-26T23:22:54","date_gmt":"2024-12-27T05:22:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/?p=9823"},"modified":"2025-01-03T20:55:16","modified_gmt":"2025-01-04T02:55:16","slug":"12-beers-of-christmas-2024-5-harveys-christmas-ale","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/golf\/lifestyle\/9823\/12-beers-of-christmas-2024-5-harveys-christmas-ale","title":{"rendered":"12 Beers of Christmas 2024 – 5: Harvey\u2019s Christmas Ale"},"content":{"rendered":"\"Harveys<\/a>\n

Boxing Day calls for an English beer, and our sole international entry this year fits the bill perfectly. A barleywine from the esteemed Harvey\u2019s & Sons in East Sussex is my favorite on the list so far this year.<\/p>\n

Boxing Day doesn\u2019t mean much here in the colonies, but in England it\u2019s an official holiday, and back in more class-oriented times a way for the upper classes to salve their consciences by not only giving the downstairs staff the day off (after working like stevedores on Christmas), along with boxes of gifts and the slightly less festive leftovers from the previous night\u2019s dinner table.<\/p>\n

Maybe that\u2019s judgmental. Our leftovers tonight were still pretty festive, and the beer from Harvey\u2019s, as it\u2019s more colloquially known, a wonderful precursor. Barleywines usually range from 8 to 12% ABV, so this one is on the mild side at 7.5%. But it\u2019s still a sturdy sip, loaded with biscuity caramel aromas, suggestions of fruit and a pleasingly coating mouthfee. There\u2019s no spice here, but there is the suggestion of it in a perfectly balanced hop bite at the finish.<\/p>\n\"harveys\"<\/a>\n

It\u2019s also a gorgeous looking brew, superbly clear, a simmering, ruby-colored beauty. All five of us who tried it liked it. I loved it. Lilah said it was her favorite, Abby\u2019s second favorite after the Hardywood Gingerbread Stout<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I started the 12 Beers of Christmas back in 2012. The granddaughters were too young to drink then, if not to young to make it into a post, one about Delirium Noel<\/a>. Here they are then, holding onto their Furbies, a Christmas present that had a half-life of enjoyment of about a half-hour. Or less.:<\/p>\n

\"GIrls<\/a>
\nHere they are now, of legal drinking age, holding onto bottles of Harvey\u2019s Christmas Ale:<\/p>\n\"harvey<\/a>\n

Brewing by the Harvey family dates back to the 1820s. The brewery is still independent, now into the eighth generation of family involvement, and housed in a classic Victorian structure sometimes referred to as the Lewes\u2019 Cathedral. The Christmas Ale is actually blessed there each year. It\u2019s been around since 1972, a spin-off by then head brewer Anthony Jenner from his Elizabethan Ale, brewed for Queen Elizabeth II’s Coronation in 1953. That\u2019s also a barleywine, which undergoes a secondary fermentation with a wine yeast.<\/p>\n

Anthony\u2019s son, Miles Jenner, is now the current Head Brewer and Joint Managing Director at Harvey\u2019s. He took his father\u2019s Christmas Ale recipe and tweaked it to include roasted malt, pinhead oats and different varieties of local hops.<\/p>\n

\"7<\/a>The beer has won some 30 awards over the years, including one from Finland called the Olutseura Olviretki award, for perfectly capturing the requirements of \u201cThe Christmas Beer Regulation,\u201d which suggests such beers needed to be strong, dark red, and causing a \u201cslight dizziness\u201d in the brain. The regulation appears somewhere in the novel Seven Brothers<\/em> by Aleksis Kivi. Maybe I should suggest it to my book group. But in any case, with an agreeable slight dizziness in my brain, the award seems perfectly apt.<\/p>\n

\"harveys<\/a>Name: Christmas Ale
\nBrewer: Harvey\u2019s Brewery, Lewes, England
\nStyle: Barleywine
\nABV: 7.5%
\nAvailability: Usually available year-round, imported to the U.S. by B. United
\nFor More Information: www.harveys.org.uk<\/p>\n

[December 26, 2024]<\/em><\/p>\n

< 12 Beers of Christmas 4: Aurora Reindeer Breath<\/a>
\n12 Beers of Christmas 6: Schlafly’s Christmas Ale<\/a> ><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Boxing Day calls for an English beer, and our sole international entry this year fits the bill perfectly. A barleywine… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":9825,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[939,627,18],"tags":[112202,1045887,708517,1045888,873162,1045889,873421,1045908,975741,975814,1002722,1013431,1045884,749,1045885,267,1045886],"class_list":["post-9823","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-beer-on-tap","category-tap-beer-of-the-week","category-lifestyle","tag-delirium-noel","tag-miles-jenner","tag-boxing-day","tag-finland","tag-abby-bedell","tag-seven-brothers","tag-lilah-bedell","tag-harveys-amp-sons-3","tag-12-days-of-christmas","tag-barleywine","tag-12-beers-of-christmas","tag-christmas-ale","tag-lewes","tag-christmas","tag-east-sussex","tag-england","tag-anthony-jenner"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2024\/12\/Harveys-Christmas-Ale.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9823","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=9823"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9823\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9845,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9823\/revisions\/9845"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9825"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9823"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9823"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9823"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}