Twelve Beers of Christmas

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Between getting married, buying a place and starting school, the past few years have been chaotic swirl of activity. With everything going on (and the amount of money that flew out of our coffers) buying gifts for our friends was impractical, but we still wanted to do something for everyone. Luckily our friends like beer, and eating what we cook, so out of this the Twelve Beers of Christmas party was born.

Spending time with our friends and slowing down even for an evening was the best way we could think to celebrate the holidays and in its second year it is proving to be a great success.  Clare and I cook a bunch of heavy appetizers and we ask everyone to bring a different beer to share.  Then everyone votes for their favorite brew and the winner gets a prize.

For this year's party we made pretzels, a veggie plate with Clare's hummus, sausage balls and Ad Hoc's chocolate chip cookies among others.   After last year's inaugural TBOC beers running the gamut from ales to pilsners to stouts, we limited the field for this year's to seasonal and holiday beers hoping for a more focused tasting.  The beer our guests brought were varied and delicious. (I've included a list of everything below)

After sampling the varioius offerings, we cast our votes to determine a winner.  This year, our friend Ethan took home the honors by bringing Great Lakes Christmas Ale.

Fun was had by all and it was a great way to kick-off the holiday season.  If you couldn't make it this year, know that we raised a beer in your honor and then quickly drank it down...then we repeated this process a few dozen more times.  The memories will last a life time but the 70 leftover beers sitting on our balcony will probably go before then.

This Year's Beer List

Great Lakes Christmas Ale - 1st Place

Winter's Bourbon Cask Ale - 2nd Place

Goose Island Mild Winter Ale

Capital Brewery Winter Skål

Big Sky Brewery Powder Hound

Anchor Steam Christmas Ale

Harpoon Winter Warmer

Full Moon Winter Ale

Bell's Sparkling Ale

Leinenkugel Fireside Nut Brown

New Glarus Fat Squirrel Ale

(Plus one that our friend Justin brought that I can't for the life of me remember)