Happy Holidays, friends! This month's Ale Together Now session focused on cozy Christmas ales and winter warmers. These beers have an interesting history, and offer a variety of flavor profiles to those looking for a delicious beer around the Holidays. From cranberries to cinnamon, gingerroot, hops, and other interesting flavors, we explored the many beers offered up by local brewers during this special time of year.
Of course, we also had to enjoy a Holiday party, with cookies, breads, and candies in abundance! Grab your favorite Holiday treat and join us as we explore the wonderful flavors of Christmastime.
Christmas ales, or Holiday ales, are not categorized very strictly-- they are roped in with spiced, herb, and vegetable beers in the BJCP (Beer Judge Certification Program) style categorization. Looking at the style more loosely, Holiday ales are beers featuring flavors that incite thoughts of the winter Holidays. Flavors can range from sweet, to citrus, to spices like cinnamon and nutmeg, and typically this beer style is dark and adjunct-heavy-- but not always. This beer style tends to feature a strong malt base, lending sweet and toasted flavors to the beer. Common adjuncts in Holiday ales include, but are not limited to, spices (cinnamon, clove, allspice, nutmeg, ginger, star anise, and vanilla) and fruit (fig, date, orange, plum, cherry, cranberry, and juniper). We sampled a fantastic example of a Holiday ale with a cranberry adjunct and Holiday spices, called Cran-ma Got Run Over by a Reindeer, by Inside the Five Brewing Co.
Christmas ales originate from ninth and tenth century Scandinavian groups, who brewed a beer called "Jul beer" in late December for the "Jul", or Yule, time, near the winter solstice. Jul beer was dark, sweet, and high in alcohol. Beer was so important at this time that King Haakon the Good, a ruler from Norway who wanted to unite local factions and blend traditions, issued fines to those who didn't gather, party, and drink Jul beer! In the eleventh and twelfth centuries, Jul beer was adopted by Christianity and brewed by Monks. Many modern beer traditions developed in Victorian England later on, like dark malted ales with mulling spices.
By the twentieth century, dark beers decreased in popularity: In Europe, Stella Artois was brewed in 1926 as a light, crisp, Belgian beer for the Christmas season. Holiday ales from the United States were just advertising until 1950-- breweries would decorate their labels with Holiday cheer, but not actually change anything about the beer! After 1950, "Special Ales" were brewed for the Holidays, and by the 1990s we were brewing Christmas Ales with a malt base, fruit, and winter spices.
Nowadays, there are dozens of local craft brewery adaptations of the Holiday ale. A variety of styles have been modified to include Holiday adjuncts, which has led to stouts, porters, sour ales, and other beer styles hosting citrus, cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, ginger, juniper, and other Holiday ingredients.
We sampled two Christmas ales, which served as fantastic examples of strong, dark ales with winter spices like cardamom, clove, and ginger: 2XMAS, brewed by Southern Tier Brewing Co. in Lakewood, New York, and Christmas Ale by Schlafly Brewing Co. in St. Louis, Missouri.
Winter warmers are similar to Christmas ales, in the sense that they tend to have a strong malt base with subtle warming flavors, like baking spices and nuts; however, winter warmers tend to be less adjunct-heavy than Holiday ales, and are typically higher in ABV for a higher shelf-life. It's a similar style to Scotch ales and wassails. We sampled a wonderful winter warmer called Nut Cracker, from Boulevard Brewing Co. in Kansas City, Missouri-- this beer is a deep amber color, with hints of molasses and spicy Chinook hops.
And finally, we can't have a Holiday Ale Together Now program without discussing wassail! Named after the Anglo-Saxon "Waes hael", meaning "be well", wassail is a mulled or spiced beverage with beer, wine, or cider; cinnamon, cloves, allspice, nutmeg, and sometimes coriander, star anise, peppercorn, and cardamom; and roasted or caramel malts. The beverage is named after the activity of wassailing, which is a Holiday tradition of singing and dancing to ward off evil spirits after the harvest. This activity often involves lots of well-wishing and neighborly drinking and camaraderie.
We are so grateful to every patron who has joined us for an Ale Together Now program. We couldn't have this program without you, and your enthusiasm and energy has kept it going for more than six years! Have a beautiful Holiday season, and we can't wait to see you in 2026.
Cheers!