After an evening of posting events & updating calendars,
I’m going to kind of phone this one in again.
But it’s a fun, easy one to write, about stuff going on leading up to
Christmas. And beer & Christmas go
remarkably well together. We’ve already
been getting Christmas-ed up here for a while: the first bottles of Mad Elf,
Victory Winter Cheer, & others started finding their way onto the shelves
in October, starting with just one shelf & gradually expanding to an entire
shelving unit & cooler. We started
tapping Christmas kegs over a week ago, & now have seven taps pouring
winter seasonals (like the curiously named Krampus from Southern Tier – Google
it).
There’s really nothing like a big, warming, high gravity
brew to warm you up on a winter evening (or afternoon…or morning, true
believers). We love big beers, &
like the hoarders we are, have amassed a small stockpile of some pretty serious
ass-kickers. We thought, what better
time to tap all these bad boys than the week leading up to our Christmas Party
on the 21st? In the spirit of
strong booze, we’re calling it XXXmas Week (like moonshine, not porn). Check out the line-up:
XXXmas Week kicks off with our Sunday Tap-In on December 15th:
Allagash Curieux. This has been
something of a cult favorite at The House, a Belgian-style tripel from one of
the great Belgo-American brewers.
Allagash ages its tripel for eight weeks in bourbon barrels, then blends
it back with fresh tripel, adding vanilla, oak, & coconut notes to the
fruity, estery base ale. At 11% ABV,
this is our “light-weight”.
The barrel-aged brew continues with Weyerbacher Insanity,
their Blithering Idiot barleywine aged in bourbon barrels. A more traditional English-style barleywine,
Insanity is on the malty side & weighs in at 11.1% ABV.
Another barleywine/stock/old ale in the English vein comes
from North Coast, with their aptly named Old Stock Ale. This has become another favorite at The House
over the years, with a formidable gravity of 1.100 & an ABV at 11.9%.
Church Brew Works took the gold at the 2012 Great American
Beer Festival in the Old Ale category with Heini’s Hooch. Since then, brewer & creator took the
recipe with him to Roundabout Brewing, but conceded to let Church brew Hogshead
Hooch a blend of old ale & golden strong ale aged in bourbon barrels. Church kicked the alcohol up a few notches,
too, to 13.3%.
Avery found the perfect name for a monstrous ale, & The
Beast tips the scales at over 16% ABV.
This Belgian-style Grand Cru is a dark, rich beer made with dates, molasses,
dark Belgian candi sugar, Colorado honey, raisins, & turbinado.
Shmaltz Brewing keeps upping the ante. Last year was their Sweet 16, & this year
they have a newly built home to christen (if you’ll pardon the
expression). For their 17th
anniversary, they’ve released Jewbelation Reborn, made with – you guessed it –
17 malts, 17 hops, & with an ABV of 17%.
Oy vey!
Things come to a head at our XXXmas Part on Saturday,
December 21st - a Dogfish
Head! We’ve been waiting for a special
occasion to tap this, & this is it: we’ve got four kegs of Dogfish Head 120
Minute IPA from four different batches since early last year, two from 2012
& two from 2013! We’ll be pouring
these bad boys in verticals only, 4 oz. of each batch. To sweeten the deal, we’ll be giving away
Dogfish Head glasses to those who venture to undertake this expedition (while
supplies last, no whining please). See
how this beer ages & unfolds, starting from February of 2012 up to the most
recent release this fall. If that isn’t
kick-ass, I don’t know what is! There
will be other fun stuff going on, like our Ugly Holiday Sweater contest. Sure, we know it’s been done, but it’s fun
anyway! Dig out that hair-raisingly
tacky sweater, wear it to The House XXXmas Party with pride, & win big –
first place gets $100 gift certificate to The House! Fill your belly with food from our kitchen,
down it with some big, delicious brews – sure beats milks & cookies.
