Pumpkin beer season is over. Let us all rejoice that this horrid time of beer (whoops, I meant year) is wrapping up and breweries are coming out with their holiday seasonals that are usually our favorite beers of the fall/winter season.
This time of year is when the old ales, stouts, porters, and other spice and dark beers are plentiful and available. What we wanted to focus on was the best of the Texas brews that embrace the holiday season and give us a reason to look forward to cooler weather taking over the state.
Here are our top five holiday brews that will make the season much more tolerable:
Grapevine Craft Brewery Stocking Stuffer – as a lighter of the holiday beers, it offers a nice alternative to the porters and stouts that are pervasive throughout the entire industry. This golden amber winter warmer is a 9.0% ABV beer that is packed with holiday spices and has a nice caramel and toffee flavor that comes off sweet. Because of the higher ABV, it is a warming beer that is a true beauty this season.
Rogness Holiday – one of the things we found most interesting the first time we tried this beer was the nutmeg flavor in the beer. Upon another taste, we found it tasted so much like oatmeal raisin cookies with the cinnamon, brown sugar, and vanilla flavors evident throughout. At 10% ABV, this holiday seasonal ale would pair perfectly with your holiday feast of ham, sweet potato pie, and pumpkin pie.
Buffalo Bayou Gingerbread Stout – if you’re the type of person that enjoys gingerbread cookies, this is definitely for you. There is so much nutmeg and cinnamon flavor, it tastes like somebody ground up cookies and put it in a beer. There is a ton of spice in this beer, but that spice can sneak up on you with the 10% ABV.
Lakewood Holiday Bonus – for a robust porter during that holiday season, this is for you. Unlike other holiday beers that are rich with spices like nutmeg and cinnamon, Lakewood chose to brew this beer to taste like chocolate with a hint of orange peels. At 6.6% ABV, it is a lighter seasonal beer that is more sessionable than other seasonals.
Karbach Yule Shoot Your Eye Out – this spice beer pours dark and pops with cocoa, brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg flavors. At 8% ABV, it’s a nicely balanced beer that is not boozy, but certainly warming. Seasonal ales like these are pleasant in that you can enjoy a beer for dessert with the chocolate flavor or as your session beer with the spicy notes.