Welcome to Barrel to Bottle, The Binny's Podcast. I'm Jim, I am the behind the scenes guy, and I edit out all the ums. Yeah. On swears. Uminator. Yep. I'm Greg, Communications. I'm Shannon, Communications. And I'm Roger, Beer. And what old man beer do I have in my glass in front of me right now? I can't wait, this is a Roger special. This whole episode is mainly old man beer. Yeah, this is our very special holiday edition of Barrel to Bottle when it comes to beer. Thanks for downloading in March. Again, I would like to emphasize that while some of these are Christmas-themed beers, they are winter appropriate. Some of them tend to last well past Christmas and New Year. But because of the way the beer industry is, distributors start to give these beers to us earlier and earlier. So when they hit the stores in August, unfortunately, they may not be around. When you want them at Christmas. So make sure to buy these early and often. So buy your pumpkin beers in July, buy your Octoberfest in September, and buy your Christmas beers in August. Exactly. I'm really not joking. It seems like we're making light of it, but there are people who have gotten used to this. So there's certain beers that come out in the winter that people are real passionate about, and they will buy a case at a time the minute it comes out. I'm guilty of that. To make sure that they have some on hand. Great Lakes, what's your guilty pleasure? Chocoveza. Oh yeah, from Stone. Yeah. That's coming soon, right? Yeah. That's a good one. I should have brought that one. Only so many things we can taste out. So I decided, as I often do, to go with a lot of classics, things that are tried and true, some of the biggest fan favorites, both here in the office, Binny's employees, and our customers. So we're going to taste through some of the best. Play the hits. We're going to start off with one that probably isn't as well known, relatively new to the market, but a very classic beer. It's been rebranded as a Christmas offering here in the US, but the brewery is very old and venerated and has been making this beer for quite some time. This is from Hofbrauhaus München. This is a beer that in Germany would be known as Hofbrau Delicatur. It's a Doppelbach, and the tradition for Doppelbachs, the very first one that was brewed was in Munich by the Polliner Brewery, and they called their beer Selvader. Selvader was named after the savior. This is the beer story that you may have come across. There's been lately in the last few years, some idiots that have tried to fast during Lent and only drink beer. The idea was that the monks during Lent and fast couldn't eat food, but that they had found a loophole in that they could drink a very rich beer that was kind of very heavy, still had a lot of carbs and sugars in it, so it would be sustaining enough that you could theoretically not eat and not die by just drinking this beer. Like lots of old stories, there's probably half truths in it and everything else. But the most important thing to take out of it is that there was a style of beer that originated in Einbeck, Germany, called Bach beer. And these monks in Munich, Germany, came up with a richer, fuller-bodied version of that, which was then known as a double Bach, Doppelbach. So Doppelbachs are kind of one of the original extreme beers. So now that everybody's into these double IPAs and Imperial Stouts and things that are really high alcohol, big flavors, Doppelbach was one of those first beers. Hundreds of years ago, this isn't something that a hipster just came up with three weeks ago. Like people wanted really big beers back then too. Some beer nerd in the 14th century is like, they use so much cereal. Yeah. If they had a little more body. So this beer comes in a six pack, yet amazingly it is 8.4% alcohol. So you get some serious bang for your buck on this beer. The winter famously is a good time for stronger beers. It's freezing out, especially here in Chicago. You like a nice rich beer to kind of warm you up. But a lot of the holiday beers we're going to try today are spiced with something. Sometimes the brewery tells you, sometimes it's secret. This is an exception. This is a Christmas theme. They're calling it more of a winter thing, winter special. It has kind of just from the malts itself and the yeast, a little bit of a spicy character. It's in there. The higher alcohol can sometimes express itself as like a peppery quality or like an anise flavor. So there's some of that there. So it's going to have some similarities to some of the other beers we taste. But if you want something that's just the basic building blocks of beer, malt hops, water, yeast. That's what we're tasting here. This hits it all. I mean, it's very well-balanced. I think it's crisp. We kind of get like, for me, I get a little bit of cherry kind of on the nose, which is really nice. And then just, I wouldn't say that this is just 8%, not at all. It's very well-balanced, deceptively easy to drink. I think I could peg it as Old World, not knowing what it was specifically. It definitely has that like, sea hop, old school classiness, and then like a little bit of that Cezanne DuPont weirdness that you say isn't a flaw that I kind of assume is sometimes. You know, it's like a little bit of that green-bottle Heineken quality. I think what you're tasting for sure is the hops. And so the hops are going to be European hops, and a lot of hops have a grassier, herbaceous kind of quality to them. Yeah, that's probably what it is. Yeah. So it's distinctly Old World. Yes. This is a great, a lot of Christmas winter beers pair really well with food. And this is a beer that is great to pair with dinners. It goes with a wide range of meals, especially richer, hardier things like stews, basically any roast meats game. But it's also a very nice beer to cook with. So sometimes people are afraid they, I try to dispel this a lot. If people cook with beer, they tend to pick up cheap beer. They're like, oh, I don't want to waste the beer on the food. Think of it in the complete opposite way. Brew with or cook with something that's good enough to drink, something that you enjoy drinking. If half to most of the point is to infuse flavor into the food, why would you want a boring run-of-the-mill beer? You want the opposite. You want something that's very flavorful and rich. So I think there are plenty of beers especially. This is normally 9.99 a six pack on sale for 8.99, which is crazy good value. Most of the beers in this style are usually sold in half-liter bottles for like three or four dollars. Or not sold on the shelf. Zing. But this is a perfect example of just like in wine, like you go to the imports and you can get some tremendous values, which then you don't need to feel as bad about throwing a bottle or two into a sauce, or into a chili or a stew or... Hardy mac and cheese. Yeah, you can make a great beer cheese with this, for sure. Is this available in those mini kegs also? Yes, it is. Very good point. Oh, really? Perfect for parties. Those make a great impression. And they are around 15 beers or so. Comes in one of those. They're five liters worth of beer. So we always never like doing that goofy European conversion here in America, but it's about 15 beers and it's like 20, 23, 24 bucks. That was the worst hangover of my life. Yeah, you got to be careful with this beer. I mean, I've known some bars that were hesitant to put on my buck from Hofbrau, which is like 6.7 because they're like, oh yeah, people start throwing up in the bathroom. Because a lot of these bars serve these in liter mugs. And if you go to Hofbrau around Christmas, they'll have this on tap and you'll be getting liters of it. So think of drinking 33 ounces of an 8.4 alcohol beer. And it's not uncommon for someone to order two of those. I mean, that's a lot of high alcohol beer. So watch yourself. You'll be lighting a ton of bomb on fire. All right, so coming up next, I have probably arguably the most iconic Christmas holiday beer, arguably the first in the American craft beer scene, arguably the first American craft brewery in a lot of ways. Anchor Brewing gave us some of the first of everything. They were the first people to brew a barley wine in America in years. They were the first people to do a porter. So they kind of look back to England for a lot of inspiration for their beers. In England, there is a rich tradition of having... The English really like their opulent things. They like things that are very toffee and caramel, and their Christmas puddings and raisiny and all these cool flavors that I always look for in a lot of things I like too. Christmas Ale was designed with that in mind, with a neat little twist. So this is one of those breweries that's a little cagey, which can be a little annoying. I've always felt that if you use unique ingredients or unique hops, there's still a recipe, right? You could give someone your recipe to something, and if you don't give any of the measurements, how is somebody going to steal it or replicate it? Secret ingredients. Like deconstruct it. Yeah. So they won't tell you what's in this beer. So who knows? It's a Christmas mystery. It changes each year, which is interesting. So I know at one point, Anker was thinking about stopping this tradition. And my guess as to why is that the brewers are getting sick of slightly changing this every single year. Because after a while, they're probably like, what else are we going to do with this beer? There's only so many spices. There's only so many grains. They can't make it too different, but they can't, you know. So it was probably a little challenging. When I say they would get bored of it, it's because this is the 45th rendition of this beer. That's unbelievable. Yeah. So when we think of craft beer in America, it's really kind of a newer thing, and Anchor was there at the very beginning. So this is the 2019 edition, obviously, but I brought one from my seller. This is something that people like to seller. Every single year, the label is slightly different. They have featured a different tree on it. So the oldest one that I had was a 2016. Not in 1974? No, unfortunately, I don't. What's kind of funny about this beer, a lot of people seller it, and I don't know if Anchor even really intended for people to do this. When the beer, for years, the beer was only about 5% alcohol, which when we talk about building a beer seller and what kind of beers are good for that, we usually are looking for beers that are at least above 7% or so, closer to 8. There are a few exceptions to that. Some of the sours that are really broken down or smoked beers. I've heard arguments that a heavily spiced ale, because spices are one of the oldest preservatives. Depending on the spice. Right. Can maybe extend the longevity of beer. So I think it's a testament to the beautiful marketing of this beer. People just love that it was one of the first vintage dated beers. They like that it has a year on it. They like the different labels. Unique labels. All of that makes it pretty tempting to want to store some and compare them. So then I think people just started opening. They're just like, oh, I forgot about this, or let's drink one and see if it's still good. I've had some pretty old ones that still taste really nice. So it's a bit of an enigma. I don't know if maybe it's some sort of the spice additions or what. Don't they also offer this in a 1.5? They do. Now, that says you have to... That's a huge imitation to let it sit around. I know. Addage is always that in a larger format, things age more gracefully. So this was like the first like, got to catch them all Pokemon beer, right? Yeah. Everyone had to have the different label, and they had to take out their Polaroid and take a photo of it. Yep. What's funny is that Anger must have been sort of aware of this, and they've been slowly increasing the ABV over the last five years. So, Weird Tasting of 2016 was the first one I passed around, and then I passed on this year's. 2016 had already crept up from 5.5, which was like about three or four years prior, all the way up to 6.5, and now this year's vintage is 6.9. To be honest, since this beer has always been so big and flavorful because of the spices and they usually use some pine in it, I like when it's a bigger rendition. And sometimes, alcohol can be paradoxical. If it's higher alcohol, it might actually seem thinner, it might be more well fermented, so it might actually be lighter in body. But in this recipe, they did mention that it's a darker, more richer version this year. And if you compare the two, just looking at them, they look pretty similar, but I don't know what you guys think. Taste them and see what you think. The smell is drastically different. And some of the 2016 notes that I pick up are those that I ascribe to age, and it's always interesting to wonder, did it pick up some of that nuance from age, or is it just the change in recipe over three years? Right. I think you nailed it. I mean, there's definitely some oxidative character in the 2016. I think they've always used a good amount of spruce, like spruce tips or some sort of pine. Maybe they've played around with different. Or is that the power of suggestion? Because of the label. It could be because famously, a lot of the old school American hops were really piney. You look at a variety like Chinook, for instance, it's going to taste very similar to, I've had beers that have really featured spruce tips prominently, and they have that lemony citrusy character. Spruce isn't just like smelling a Christmas tree, it has a citrusy quality to it. So a lot of this beer's character comes from those West Coast old school hops. So again, bit of a mystery here as to what is in it each year, but very interesting beer nonetheless, and again, kind of mysteriously seller worthy, and the newer ones I think have reached an ABV now, or it's pretty closer to what you'd sell or Even though they're modernizing the recipe, Anchor still keeps this right on the edge of the old man and beer category. Well, the other thing, I mean, it's an amped up brown ale. The other thing that should be mentioned in this is that Anchor has one of the most unique yeast strains in the world. Oh yeah. I mean, it is a weird yeast. It's very tangy. It fits totally with San Francisco culture. They're famous for sourdough bread. You try different, we used to joke about this. Anchor was kind of forced to innovate and do some more modern styles lately. Like when Anchor IPA came out? Yeah. I really liked it because it's got that weight of Anchor steam, but it also has the hoppy freshness. And nobody else wanted that kind of IPA anymore because it's the great IPA. It's like bitter. Yeah. Deliciously bitter. But also that tain, that tain is like the yeast imparts so much flavor. It's actually a good lesson in how nobody talks about yeast really in the beer world. Hops get all the credit, they steal all the thunder, malt gets forgotten, yeast gets forgotten. So when you drink an Anchor beer, a big part of it is that yeast. And that comes through pretty loud and clear in their Christmas. So wisely, Anchor is now starting to brew some more innovative beers, and they've used different yeast strains in those. Like, I mean, when it's appropriate, it's appropriate. So they still do plenty of beers with their unique signature yeast. But yeah, Anchor, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year beer. We have it now at The Current Vintage in six packs or in Magnum bottles. How much is a six pack of this stuff? Like 12 bucks? Yeah, mm-hmm. Around there. Awesome. Can't go wrong. Let's move right on up from the 70s to the 2000s, or modern interpretation of Christmas time here. This is a Christmas holiday beer that we sell boatloads of. It's probably one of my favorites. Objectionably named. The Revolution Brewery famously has a clenched, raised fist as their logo, and this is Fistmas. Santa is the feature prominently on the can here, wearing a barrel. And this is basically Rev's take on a Christmas beer. And if you were to look at the landscape of winter and holiday Christmas beers, a lot of them have spices that we associate with Christmas time. So ginger, nutmeg, allspice, clove. And depending on the brewery, again, they either tell you what they're using or they're just kind of generically say spices. This beer took kind of a hoppy red as the base beer and then added ginger and orange peel. It makes it brighter, way brighter and zippier. Also on the nose, it's distinctly revolution. There's a blast of fresh hops. It also, especially with today's IPAs, there's so little malt body, especially from like darker grains. Like a lot of the New England ones and stuff, it's basically pale malt, wheat, oats. This is hoppy, but it has some of that amber malt, you know, caramely character to it, which I think is kind of sad in a lot of today's IPAs. You miss that balance of malt and hops that's gone. I know, speaking Greg's language here. Yep. But yeah, this is just super drinkable beer. I don't know that they really peg it as like a, I don't know, pale ale, I guess. What's it say? It just sort of says like holiday ale. It just says holiday ale, yeah. It kind of drinks like a... Six and a half percent. Like an IPA sort of, but not too much bitter. It's like a slightly spicy IPA. Yeah, it's a little sweeter. I really like the citrus and the ginger is just a little snappy. Yeah, the ginger I think is perfect. It's just like there but not... If you gave this to somebody, they might not even be able to put their finger on that there was ginger in it, but they'd know there was something that was kind of bright, true. But yeah, a tasty beer. If you're looking for kind of some holiday winter beers that aren't necessarily big, rich malty beers, this is a nice break. Sierra Nevada Celebration is another one. Fresh hop. Arguably one of the first IPAs brewed in the US since Prohibition. And that's another good option. Next up, we have another holiday beer with a little bit of hop character to it. This is Alpha Claws. This is actually only the second year that this has been available in six packs. Alpha Claws kind of taking a cue from the Three Floyd's famous pale ale Alpha King. Alpha referring to Alpha Acids, which are the bittering components of hops. So this is essentially a big, they call it like a holiday porter that's got big roasty character. It's also decently hopped. This is kind of the way the old school American porters like really early on were. Not about just like sweet, this tastes like dessert. It was like, this is a big bold. Roasty is the exact word. Very roasty. It's like chocolate or caramel, not caramel, chocolate or light coffee. What's really interesting about this is that Three Floyd's famously made these really big, aggressive beers. And then they would add ingredients. They were really early to the game. Like they brewed a beer called Apocalypse Cow. That's a big Imperial IPA with lactose. But it's so different than what people are doing with lactose now. It's so good. I mean, the sweetness just rounds the edges of what would otherwise be like aggressive beer. It's like, wow, this is just really flavorful now. It's not offensive. So that's what- Hey, hey, hey. Yeah. It's Three Floyd's. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I mean, it was- It's not offensive. It's supposed to be like that. I know. I know. I'll get a fanboy out over here. Absolutely. I mean, I get it. I'm just- What I want to make clear with this beer is that it's brewed with Mexican sugar. And I don't want people to read that and think like, oh, it's going to be sweet because it couldn't be further from- It's not. Yeah, it's not sweet at all, really. But Three Floyd's is smart enough to know that that would add an interesting level of character and maybe round some of the bitterness out. Like again, the bitterness is there, it's just like round the edges, so it's not like a tongue burner, but- What is Mexican sugar? Is that like Mexican Coke where it's real sugar? Is that P. Lansillo? Yeah, exactly. So most of the brown sugar that we buy just has- it's pretty kind of asinine. It's refined sugar that then has molasses put back into it. So real true brown sugar is just unrefined sugar. So there's different levels of refinement that you can do to it. So you're essentially stripping out the bitter molasses component. So it's still fermentable, but then it also has a flavor to it too, that's getting out of the beer, not just sweetness and fermentable sugar. It comes in those little cones that you see in the Mexican grocery store. It's like a bag full of little brown cones of sugar. A lot of the times it's- yeah, so there's these old things called sugar. That's how a lot of old school sugar was made, was that like it was put in these big pots that were conical, and then it would essentially just form into sugar loaves, which is why- this is all coming back to me now because I was talking about sugar tongs and someone made a joke about pinching a loaf. But you would like take these tongs and like snip off a chunk of sugar from the sugar cone. So yeah, Jim is right. Usually in the store when you find this thing, it's in this little cone. If you use it in coffee, which is one of the most popular uses now, it adds a whole different dimension of coffee. Think of it as you're adding a little teeny bit of molasses to your coffee or tea, or baked good or whatever you're going to use it for. So again, that's another reason for adding this. That's actually, I believe it was in the Goose Island this year, right? The Cafe de Ola is imitating a Mexican coffee. Cafe de Ola. I used to work for a brewery and they brewed a porter with Pioncillo, and the bags, the giant bags we ordered like bulk, they had scorpion parts in them. Oh, wow. It's an agricultural product. Yes. There was a lot of agriculture in there. Nice. That is horrific. Yeah. Oh, we got a bottle of Malbec once that had a knife in it. What? I swear to God, I still have the picture somewhere. Apparently, the pruning, somebody must have just dropped their wooden-handled paring knife into the bottle, and then it had been encased in Malbec for some indeterminate amount of time, shipped to North America, sent to Binny's, and then brought back to Binny's when somebody was like, Yeah, there's a knife in there. They're like, you want another bottle? And they were like, I don't know. Can I have a gift certificate for non-knife-y wine? Remember when Homer was the sugar king, and he had the sugar, and it came with prizes? That's what the peel and seal was like. It came with prizes, and most of them were not usable. Scorpions, there's worse stuff. Scorpions, you can eat them. Protein. I was going to say Roger the loaf king, Adamson. Well, you could say sugar king, Adamson, because I'm really in the old school natural sugars. We could talk all about Turbinado and Demerara, and the merits of each. I think we should do a podcast about it, about sugars. Sugars and their usage in alcohol. Cool. Yeah, do it. One of the coolest things you can do for cocktails is start looking for Demerara sugar, they have Demerara sugar cubes, it will completely change your old fashions or my ties. I have started doing that. Anything that you like using a sugar cube in, try using unrefined sugar as opposed to totally change the character. All right, coming up next, we have 21st Amendment, Cali. This is their Fireside Chat. So this is a Spiced Winter Warmer. Winter Warmer is kind of a, again, kind of a British term. We used to carry some winter warmers in the past. A malt-centric beer. 21st Amendment uses a really interesting malt bill for this. I'm gonna read it here. Pale, Munich, wheat, crystal, debittered black, chocolate malt, and Abbey malt. That's a lot of malt. And I think it will come through when you give it a taste. It also is hopped with Columbus and US. Goldings. Columbus being a really old school hop, US. Goldings a US grown English hop. And then special ingredients, the mysterious, quote, spices, and a little bit of cocoa. Man, is that malty. Yeah. Spices seem similar to the fistmas. You think so? I think so. I think it's a little heavier and a little less pronounced. But the flavor wouldn't be surprised if there was orange and ginger. But no, there's no hoppy aroma on this one. Yeah. There's definitely cinnamon in there. I mean, I guarantee you. Since it's cinnamony, there's probably allspice. I mean, if I was a brewer, allspice is aptly named because it's supposed to taste like, I don't know, allspices. So you get a lot of bang for your buck if you use allspice. Nutmeg is expensive. This seems to me like a microcosm of 21st Amendment overall, in that it's slightly underflavored and boring. Really? Yeah. That's how I feel about all of their beers. That's a bold statement, borderline offensive. Unlike their beers, it's a bold statement. I, oh, jeez, hate, hate, hate. I was so excited when we first got them, like, oh, cool. Highly regarded San Francisco Brewery in cans, because I'm a can fanatic. And then everything I had from them was like a little less pronounced than I wanted it to be. Well, all right. Let me conferral say that some of their pale ales and IPAs might be a little lackluster, but their strong suit is when they put twists on things and do unique things. They have one of the best watermelon beers. I knew you were going to say that. And it actually. Like when they add watermelon. It doesn't. It tastes like cucumber because they add the rind part of the watermelon. It's real watermelon. It doesn't taste like watermelon Jolly Rancher. It tastes like real watermelon. Their Blood Orange IPA is delicious. Tastes like legit blood orange, not just oranges. And their big beers they've done over the years. I feel, again, they show some real malt complexity. Again, this is not super hoppy. This is basically like a brown ale. So again, not your jam. But so is the Three Floyds, and that one's like, bam. That's a porter. So very different. It's going to have much more bitter, roasty malt in it. So this struggles from the standpoint of what, why brown ales are destined to not be revered by many people because it's more nuanced. It's more about developing a more nuanced flavor, so. Yeah, you're right. But again, sneaky, high ABV. It doesn't really seem like it, but this is, I think, nine percent alcohol. It might be eight. I was just about to- It's eight, 7.9. Jesus. Still, it doesn't seem like eight percent. I was just about to suggest the stocking stuffer for this one. Yeah. Yeah. So I was out at the bar the other night, and there's this guy sitting next to me, and he was arguing with the bartender about the ABV of rum chata, and I kind of randomly blurted it out. And I said, what is it for? He's like, oh, it's for a stocking stuffer. And apparently, it was, they were using the Great Lakes Christmas Ale and dropping a shot or bomb of rum chata into it, and it was surprisingly delicious. Flavor blasted. Shot of cream liqueur in your. I can't remember the last time I did a bomb of anything, so that was interesting. It was Malort. Well, unlike the famous Irish bomb, this would be 8% as opposed to the 4.2. So it really definitely gives you some rosy cheeks, a little Christmas cheer. Boom. Boom. Yeah, I could see that. But I was actually, when you were talking about that, I was going to say maybe we should try that, but not necessarily appropriate for us to be doing bombs. Just a little mix. Also, when it's hard alcohol, then the bomb gives it a lot of flavor and kick in some booze because you're drinking hard. But a cream liqueur, you might as well just pour milk in your beer. The thing I couldn't get past is that the cream almost curdles if you don't drink it right away, right? That's kind of gross. You shake it up with some lime juice before you dump it. All right. Last but not least, we have one of my favorites. This is St. Bernard's Christmas sale. Always something that people get real excited about every year. St. Bernard's, for those of you that aren't familiar, a beer that we've talked about in the past. This brewery is in Belgium and they famously brewed the arguably the most sought after beer for years, was West of Letteren's 12. It's a big Abbey beer, essentially a quadruple. When the Trappist regulations got more shored up and they said, if something's going to be labeled Trappist, it actually has to be brewed in a monastery. There needs to at least be a token monk in the background. So they were contracting Westy out of St. Bernardus. Yes. Yeah. So arguably, when you drink a St. Bernardus 12, it is arguably the same recipe as the Westy 12. Depends on yeast and other intangible factors, like the fact that you paid $90. Well, as a big fan of Westy 12, anytime I've ever had one, I've tried to drink it alongside comparable beers. Some of the other Trappist, Quads, St. Bernardus, there are massive similarities. It's not worth saying. Like it's always hard and super subjective to say what's the best. The thing I usually try to tell people is that you don't necessarily have to go out of your way to try to obtain Westy because it's basically unobtainable because you have some nice alternatives. If you do get a hold of one for whatever reason, someone goes and visits Belgium, brings it back. It's an excellent beer. But if you do get one, I suggest doing that. Try it next to the other ones. Then at least you get the peace of mind. Oh, I could go buy a Roquefort 10. I could go buy St. Bernard's 12. I could go buy a Strafe Hendrick. Like there's other great quads that we do have access to. And then we could actually sell some of them. Yeah. But St. Bernard's comes in either. Most of our stores should have the 750s that are Cork and Cage. There's a few people that might have the four packs. Belgian beers, especially in this format, I think are great around the holidays. They make quite a nice presentation. They make great gifts. Roger is pouring a beer with excellent head retention. Tons of foam on this because this beer is naturally carbonated. A dying art form these days in beer. Our bottle-conditioned beer is living. There is living yeast in the bottom that once the beer was bottled, they made sure that there was the right amount of residual sugar in there, that the tiny amount of yeast that was left in the bottle could keep fermenting the beer. The result is that you get a beer with great longevity, huge aging potential, and this big beautiful head of foam here. I just stuck my nose in it. Way to do it. We're drinking these out of these little plastic cups. Normally, if you don't have Belgian style glassware, which you should, and Binny's offers lots of excellent selections of that, go for a big glass for this, something like a burgundy wine glass. You want something that's going to accommodate all the foam, something that your nose can get right up there and appreciate all the aromatics. Big flavor here, a lot of banana, estuary, roundness and sweetness, soft fruit and like kind of spice. Is it actually flavored or is it just from the big four? No, there's spices in this as well. So this is essentially the famous St. Bernardo's Sap 12, but with spices. So yeah, there's definitely a citrusy character to this that you wouldn't really get in the normal one. I wouldn't be surprised if they're adding like orange peel to it. It doesn't say. Is anyone getting like a tartness? Tartness? Yeah. I think some of that is probably an astringency from like a clove. It's hard to tell because Belgian yeasts are already so phenolic and they always have some spicy character to them. But there's definitely clove in here. The issue is if it's just from the yeast or if they added cloves. A little clove goes a long way if they actually put some in. But yeah, the kind of peppercorn quality you get can be from the alcohol. This is the highest ABV of any of the ones we tried. Does it say on there? It should be on there. It's 10%. Yeah, it's 10%. You know what I like about this one? It's so far apart from the rest of what we've tried here. Yes. Most of the stuff that we've tried here is like an Americanized style of the classic beer with some spice, or with some flavor, or something like that. This is a wacky Belgian style that's already kind of kooky. The banana is probably just the base beer. Yeah, for sure. Then something else on top of that. Its foundation is already miles away. I agree. Again, the perfect platform to talk about how much character yeast can impart to a beer is Belgian beers. And yeah, the banana ester, the clove ester, famously. No adjuncts required, just straight from the yeast. The other thing I think is crazy about a beer like this is that it's 10 percent alcohol, but it's so light on its feet. I mean, it's so soft. The mouth feels creamy. You'd never guess. I mean, there's a little bit of warmth on the back end, but it still is pretty easy to drink. There are like barrel-aged stouts that are 10 percent that are drinking syrup. This is liquid fudge. Quite different from that. And just like walking past a goth kid smoking outside of a mall, a little bit of clove goes a long way. There's some honorable mentions we should talk about if you're curious about some of the other iconic. Great Lakes Christmas is probably one of the lead dogs. We've, I think, tried that in a different podcast we did. It's honey is in that, so you get a definite honey flavor to it. That's a popular one. Yep, so bull loads of it. A Sleeper that I think is kind of an interesting beer that I was on the fence about pouring today, I felt we went through quite a few, but Shiner makes a beer called Holiday Cheer, which again, talking about being a little out there, it's a Dunkle Whiteson, which is an odd style to begin with. There are actually some similarities with what we're drinking right now, because the Whiteson yeast has those banana clove esters, and then they flavor it with peaches and pecans. So it's a hoarder beer, like that's one of the ones where when people hear it, they're out by cases of it. Like people that like that beer love it. And it is a pretty neat beer. I enjoy having one, and then after a while, it's like, okay, that's pretty intense beer, but that's definitely one worth checking out, and it's one that tends to sell out fast. We always think we're going to order more the following year, and it still runs out. So check out Shiner Cheer, that's a good one. Another one that I love that's a little frustrating, the only way you can get it is in the Sam Adams Holiday Variety Pack, is Old Fezziwig Ale. And that's again a very, if you want big time spicy, that's spicy. That's one that the kids clamor for, but you have to buy 10 other breeders at the same time. Yeah. Sometimes you'll see they sneak in or make your own six pack rack. We used to do that. In February. Yeah, we do have usually some pretty awesome prices on the Sam variety packs. I think they're 10.99 right now, so it's not the worst thing, though. Pretty great. So there's solid beers in there. As long as you can choke down a cranberry wheat, Sam. You know, it's funny, so that got kicked out this year. Oh, really? Yeah. Hey, f**k cranberry wheat. Yeah. So yeah, their winter lager has always been a nice lager as well. Brooklyn does a winter lager that's again kind of similar to the same Adam's one. It's more of like a Schwartz beer, kind of, so dark but light. Yeah, Craig is like, boring. Another outlier for Christmas beers or winter beers is Bell's Winter White. It's kind of neat in that it's a wit, it's kind of modeled after a wit beer, but it lets the yeast provide all the flavor. So most wit beers are spiced with coriander and orange peel. And in most cases, way too much coriander, in my opinion. Hot dog water. Yeah, I really am not a coriander fan and usually off putting to me. So Bell's Winter White, which is now called Bright White, guess they wanted to get the word winter off of there so they could sell it longer. I don't know about Bright White, but anyway, it makes me think of Gremlins, which is an excellent Christmas movie. Bright White! Bright White! Bright White's around, and that's a solid beer. New Belgium Accumulation Ale was one of the first beers to feature mosaic hops. And that is a delicious, it's basically a wheat, pale ale, wheat IPA with mosaic. And I always, that was really impressed when that came out and no mosaics like everywhere. But for a while, that was one of the only mosaic hopped beers. New Belgium, we'll see if maybe their new ownership changes this. Basically, invents good beers and then takes them away. And then that's true. They have forever. It's so frustrating. Like, what's available when I go? How about to below? Is that around? Like, I don't know. We work in the industry and it's already confusing because they bring it back. Take it away. Bring it back. It's in the 12 pack now. We put it in a four pack and the art is completely different. Now it has a dog on it. They would do the variety 12 pack thing all the time. People would be like, can I get two below? It's like, well, you can get three of them in the variety pack and people would just look at you like, great. Enjoy six fat tires. Yeah. No, thanks. What I like about these beers, all of them, is that they're not spice bombs. Yeah. In this day and age of which I'm surprised that more breweries have not started making giant Christmas. Oh, yeah. Pastries doubts, spice. Yeah. I mean, there are some, but I'm surprised there's not more of them because there's not a lot of restraint and- Yeah, especially in the one-off release culture where you make like 18 cases of it. Yes, exactly. How is there not different pie beers about Christmas pie beers? Oh, don't. I don't think we can even- I'm putting it out there. Unleash the curse of this episode upon the world. I'm putting it out there. Do it. Yeah. There's some over the top ones for sure. Part of the idea behind this was to give people some ones that are tried and true and that aren't over the top, but they're around. Southern Tier, who I've started to view as the Oppenheimer of the whole adjunct thing. They really just started this whole mess. They have a pretty cool Christmas beer which actually came back this year, but we couldn't get very much of it called- they have a 2X series, two times, and it's usually big Imperial beers, and it's just called 2X Christmas, like Xmas. And that's modeled after Glog, the wine, so like a mulled wine. It's pretty cool. It's one of the better over-the-top weird, but still pulls it off. But to your point, this from the Rui, who brought you pumpkin and creme brulee. Yeah. The creme brulee nitro is ridiculous. The nose on it is- it's unbelievable, but I still can't get past the finish is still- Like dessert syrup. Is it sweet? It's like- It's so sweet. It's sweet and it's just, I don't know. Some people love it. But yeah, this is just kind of scratching the surface. There's still, like I said, there's some definitely other ones out there. Talk to your Binny's Beer Associates and they'll be happy to point you in whatever kind of direction. But this is kind of a smattering of a little bit of import, a little bit of American, a bit of tried and true. Not too over the top. So Roger, what is your favorite spice combination? Like if you had to create your own holiday ale, what would it look like or what it tastes like? Well, I think allspice would be in there, but we also associate allspice with some savory stuff. Like it's kind of the major component in barbecue sauce. So again, you have to be pretty subtle with allspice. You can't use a ton of it. Nutmeg, I think, is a classic. Nutmeg has a really interesting flavor. Nutmeg, ginger, again, like a little bit of restraint with the ginger, not over the top, and maybe a little bit of allspice. I'm surprised there's not more use of juniper, juniper berry. Yeah, juniper is neat, for sure. Juniper complements hops really well. I taste juniper in a lot of IPAs I drank. Exactly. You make a pale that's invocative of Christmas spices, holiday spices, or those notes that you get associated with that season, and not have it be a dark, heavier beer. Right. One thing that I think is kind of neat, I really like the old-fashioned English dessert pudding, which doesn't make much sense to us because we're used to snack packs. But pudding was really this, talk about an old-school English, only the English would cook food this way. They would literally boil it in a bag, and then that evolved into a tin, and then you can steam it instead of boiling it, but you still do it for hours. It's a total pain in the ass. My sister, bless her heart, would make these every once in a while. And there are a lot of the things that you flambé, so it's very dramatic. But since these aren't really around, and it's not something we're familiar with in the States, fruitcake is the devolution of the English Christmas pudding. So it's really dense, it's spiced, but then it has a bunch of fruits in it. So it has like, they're usually things like dried fruits, like raisins, figs, dates. So I like a lot of those flavors, and I could see a brewery making a nice, there have been beers over the years, I'm trying to rack my brain now on who's done this. I think Dogfish has, where it would be neat to make a Christmas beer that incorporated some of that stuff maybe. Or at least try to emulate those flavors, because those flavors are common in Belgian beers. There's a little bit of that in the St. Bernard's beer. You taste kind of like a dark, like a figgy kind of thing. Let's brew it. Yeah. What we didn't bring up, to your point, the Christmas cookies, these beers are perfect for Christmas cookies. Yes. You mean drinking with eating Christmas cookies? Yes. Leave out a glass of Anchor Merry Christmas and Happy New Year with your Cookies for Santa this year. Or Hanukkah Harry. Or Krampus. Or Krampus. Okay, Roger. Well, thank you for bringing these non-spice bomb Christmas ales. Yeah, my pleasure. They're delicious. Cheers. Until next week. Wait, wait, wait. Hold on. Let me start again, as Greg looks to say. We'll be in... Wait. We'll be in your feed. Something about being in your feed. Next week. Yeah, we'll be all up in your feed. If you like the Barrel to Bottle podcast, please leave us a nice review on iTunes or wherever else you can leave reviews. Also, tell your friends that these guys are entertaining. Yep. Subscribe. We got jokes sometimes. All right. It's not a little buggy. Please, please, please, please, sir. Please, sir, register review. We put at least an hour's worth of work into every 45-minute episode. So let us know what you thought of these. If you pick any up, drop us a line. Check us out at Binny's Bev, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram. Follow us, please. Subscribe to our podcast, iTunes, Google Podcasts. Buy things. Until next time, this is another episode of Barrel to Bottle, The Binny's Podcast. We'll see you in a week. I'm Greg. I'm Jim. I'm Shannon. And I'm Roger. Keep tasting.