Now that it is properly wintertime, I don't mind giving a shout out to some fine winter beers. There are so many of them, that I don't at all pretend to do justice to the subject, but a few of them have crossed my path recently that are worth commenting on.
Hopworks Abominable Winter Ale
Yes, I am one of those people that says "Is the Jubel good this year?" and "Wassail seems better than last year", despite the fact that those recipes are probably not tampered with much from year to year. So, here I go doing that same thing with Abominable -- it's really good this year, better than I remember it. Hopworks being Hopworks, it's always a clean, hearty 7.5% sipper, but this year the flowery hops are more noticeable right up front. It's now available in HUB's new tall-boy cans -- thanks to Jaime at HUB for gifting me one a few weeks ago -- but my serving suggestion to you is to have it on tap, especially if your neighbor has it in his kegerator.
Didn't this used to be called "AbominabAle"? Good thing they changed it to the more pronounceable "Abominable". Or you can just call it A-Bomb if you get friendly enough with it.
Red Hook Winterhook
The good folks at Craft Brewers Alliance kindly sent me a couple bottles of Red Hook Winterhook this year. This is more in the winter warmer category than in the winter hop-bomb category, though I was pleasantly surprised at the nice hop aroma and flavor that dry-hopping gives it. Not quite as damaging as a lot of winter seasonals at 6%, and the dark malts are more restrained than in a lot of similar beers. Certainly worth grabbing a sixer if you see it at the supermarket.
Alesmith Yule Smith
A few of the neighbors gathered Thanksgiving evening at Mr. and Mrs. Smith's house, and the host fittingly brought out a bottle of Yule Smith. It was fabulous -- a dense, potent, piney, gloriously unbalanced multiple-IPA. He said he got it at Belmont Station, and I seem to remember seeing some bottles of this on the clearance shelf there recently, so I'm not sure if we were drinking last year's or this year's (the bottle didn't have any kind of date stamp that I could see). No matter -- if you see a bottle, grab it. Highly recommended.
