The Joys of Holiday Season Beers

BY DAVID NUTTALL

THERE IS NOTHING THAT starts a discussion faster among beer drinkers than seasonal beers. Everyone seems to have a love/hate relationship with pumpkin ales, questions the virtues of Christmas beers, or lies in a state of confusion over what-theheck-is-a-summer-beer-anyway? It is noteworthy that modern drinkers even have beers of this ilk to discuss, given their absence during almost two centuries of Big Brewery domination. From the dawn of brewing, seasonal beers were the only beers made. Before beer styles became a thing, brewers produced batches in accordance with what nature gave them. As the year progressed, whatever was available for the kettle defined the ingredients for the next beer. Breweries were small, local, and each one had unique offerings. This began to change with the onset of the Industrial Revolution in the 1800s, as breweries grew and started to churn out product dictated by set recipes.

The economics of scale mandated they only brewed a couple of different beers, and those brands defined the brewery.

Many of those beers are still around today, from European stalwarts to the indomitable North American massproduced lagers. Very few breweries through the 19th and 20th centuries made any attempt of brewing outside the box by putting out a seasonal beer. Yes, there were/are Oktoberfest beers, saisons, and the occasional Christmas beer (often barley wines were released to mark the holiday season), but nothing that resembles what is happening today.

This is not to say that Big Breweries of this period ignored the seasons and holidays; remember marketing and advertising departments were born during this era. However, their contribution lay almost entirely with putting on a different label or changing the packaging of their standard beer to reflect the season.

Fortunately, this all changed with the rise of the craft brewery. It didn’t take long for these new operations to expand beyond their core beers to releasing special editions. Since they brewed in small batches, this allowed them to experiment with beers that reflected the seasons which, not coincidentally, would help in attracting more customers.

Winter is by far the most popular season for these beers, which includes the subset of holiday beers. With Christmas being the most popular holiday, as well as a period of vast consumerism, this was the first of the seasonal beers produced.

Historically, winter beers even preceded Christianity, with Vikings and other cultures brewing to celebrate their gods and the winter solstice. The Scandinavian beers used dark malts with spice blends (gruit) in place of hops to produce a style that the British adapted to their winter warmers. These beers transitioned to Christmas ales and became prominent in the monastic breweries of Europe. Some

Search them out, and look for other breweries’ versions too in both liquor stores and taprooms:

Banded Peak Brewing Chockstone Stout

88 Brewing Sticky Toffee Pudding Dessert Stout

Dark Woods Honduran Coffee Stout

Folding Mountain S’mores Milk Chocolate Stout and Snow

Cap Winter Ale

Bow River Brewing Gingerbread Amber Lager, Prairie Night Porter, and Warming Ale

Hub Town Brewing Santa's Little Helper Imperial Stout

Troubled Monk Drifted In Porter

Alley Kat Nutty by Nature Peanut Butter Stout

Bent Stick Brewing Brown Christmas Spiced Belgian Winter Ale and Stocking Stuffer Gingerbread Brown Ale

Annex Ale Black Mass Dark Lager

Town Square Prairie Fire Rauchbier, Square One Coffee Lager, Strawberry Rhubarb Pie Sour, and Chainsaws for Hands Rye and Ginger Sour

Railyard Brewing Nitro Peanut Butter Milk Stout

New Level Brewing Krampus Jr.

Marda Loop Brewing Blackberry Porter

Campio Brewing Co. Czech Amber

Cold Lake Brewing and Distilling 8 Months of Winter Ale

Township 24 Stone The Crows Scottish Ale

High Key Brewing (Saskatoon) London Fog Porter of these beers are still around today, albeit with modern recipe adaptations, but are well worth searching out.

European immigrants to North America brought over this tradition, however it died out during the rise of Big Breweries. It didn’t return until 1975 when it was resurrected by Anchor Brewing in San Francisco with its Anchor Christmas Ale. There is no set definition of what characterizes Christmas/winter beers, so they remain open to interpretation by the creativity of the brewers. Nevertheless, most are ales, often malt forward, spiced, or have seasonal flavours added, and higher in alcohol. A majority of craft breweries produce a couple through the winter months, including those specifically targeted as holiday beers, which often involves names and labels that employ the use of non-copyrighted characters. Today, these beers are still popular, although because of their timing, their suitability lasts only so long, at least until the following year. As such, breweries are now more inclined to also brew “special” or “limited edition” releases year round with no ties to the calendar. However, if you’d like to get in the mood for the holidays, these Alberta craft beers (and one from Saskatchewan) can certainly help.

Almost all these beers were not in the market before the completion of writing, but should be out by the time you read this. There are a wide variety of styles here, from various stouts to flavoured lagers. They are all winter special releases, so they won’t be around for long.