4th Annual Advent-ure Calendar Final Reflections
We survived another beer advent-ure! Thanks for tuning in for one of our favorite blog and holiday traditions. This year we did something different by only drinking Christmas and winter ales from Ohio. We had some new ones, old favorites and ones we probably want to forget about. As always, it was interesting to read everyone’s review after we tried the beers and to guess which ones people would like (or hate) the most. We hope you had as much fun this year as we do every year!
FINAL REFLECTIONS
Beard & Broad
Beard: I look forward to this every year for a couple reasons: I do enjoy beer, but I also enjoy talking about it with other people and seeing their reactions when trying different ones. I had the bright idea to limit us to only Ohio beers this year, which I thought would be easy, but was in fact quite difficult because around 25 Ohio winter beers exactly are distributed in Cleveland. While this was fun to only drink beers from our home state this time around, I did find myself missing some old standbys from the rest of the country.
Stand outs for me: Noble Beast Cookies & Milk, Platform Holiday Donut Cookie, Columbus Brewing Citra Noel, Fat Head’s Pimp My Sleigh and Great Lakes Oatmeal Stout. That last one was a big surprise for me, had no idea how good that beer was! Any of the overly spiced beers were once again not my favorites, but I get that many people looooove those beers around the holidays and that’s all they want to taste. I also did enjoy the Barrel Aged 12 Dogs curveball we threw in at the end.
Overall, the big take away for me was that we make some damn good beer in Ohio. We also make a lot of it. Next year we’ll definitely have to re-open it to any kind of Christmas/Holiday/Winter beer, but I enjoyed this little experiment this year.
Broad: I was a little worried about only doing Ohio beers this year. Beard thought it would be super easy to find 24 Ohio Christmas/Winter ales but it proved to be slightly difficult considering not every brewery distributes. With that being said, we had some very amazing beers and some beers I’d rather not try again.
The clear winners for me were: Noble Beast Cookies & Milk, Columbus Brewing Citra Noel, Great Lakes Oatmeal Stout, Platform Holiday Donut Cookie and Collision Bend 8 Crazy Nights. It seems like I loved the stouts this year and Citra Noel is just a tasty beer and always a favorite. 12 Dogs still reigns as my favorite Christmas ale. The ones I didn’t like were: Saucy 3 Hos, Sibling Revelry Pecan Brown, Maumee Bay Blitzen and Millersburg Edgy Elf. I didn’t like the ones that were too spicy or full of honey, they tasted like potpourri and were too much.
I think for next year we do out of state beers again because I missed a bunch we normally drink. Maybe we can add another twist too. We have some time to think about it!
Adam & Alex
Adam: Every time we do the beer advent calendar I realize a few things: Ohio and Cleveland especially are lucky to have such a wide array of holiday beers available to us. I also realize that OVER spicing is something that too many breweries do and that, to me, what makes the best holiday beers is either balance or thinking outside the box. My favorite beers were Citra Noel, eight crazy nights, and the oatmeal stout from GLBC. also the raspberry chocolate sour that Alex referenced. Quality versions of beers that aren’t just cinnamon bombs. The thing I learn every year most of all is how ready i am for lighter beers the time this part of the year rolls around. It’s such a fun idea and if you take a little time to search for beers you can track down so much more than just your standard winter ales.
Alex: I feel like this years Christmas Beer Advent calendar was definitely overall stronger than in previous years. I can really only remember one beer (Three Ho’s) that I really strongly disliked. We tried a few new ones this year including Collision Bend’s 8 Crazy Nights and the Urban Artifact Raspberry Chocolate Sour that I loved, as well as the regular reliable beers like Twelve Dogs, Great Lakes Christmas Ale and Holly Jolly. Merry Christmas!!
Scott & Christa
Scott: What a ride! I struggled finding enough Ohio beers this year, which also made it more of a challenge and even more memorable than in years past. I definitely learned that Ohio is the king of winter beers, but I’m even more excited now to try new beers outside the state in 2019. Love this annual tradition and can’t wait to start it all over a year from now. Merry Christmas!
Christa: After sitting out last years to grow a human, this year’s has been extra special to me. Though there were a few misses for me (Three Hos, Blitzen and Sliderule), there were an overwhelming amount of wins. Ohio does beer like it does people: never over stated, never too much, a polite amount of bite, and the right amount of sweet. I love that Beard and Broad include us in this each year as it’s become one of our family’s favorite traditions and I can’t wait for 2019. Cheers to all and to all a good night.
Tony & Megan
Tony: Another great year of the Holiday Beer Adventure Calendar! So much fun to be a part of this! I liked the new twist Beard and Broad put on it this year in terms of all Ohio breweries. It forced us to seek out breweries we might not have normally tried such as Maumee Bay Brewery (Blitzen) and Millersburg Brewing Co (Edgy Elf). Those might not be among the favorites but it’s always fun to try new ones, especially new ones in Ohio.
Some of my favorites from this year were repeats from last year; Madtree Brewing Thunder Snow, Great Lakes Oatmeal Stout, Fat Heads Holly Jolly, and Platform’s Esther. However, there were some new ones that I loved as well; Fat Head’s Pimp My Sleigh, Urban Artifact Sliderule, and Goldhorn’s Misfit Toy.
The reason I enjoyed those so much was because of the flavor but also because they were so unique. Fat Head’s was a Belgian style ale, Urban Artifact was a Gose, and Goldhorn’s was a holiday stout. Three different styles of beers all with their own unique take on a holiday beer.
This brings me to a possible concept for next year. Now I’m not sure if there would be enough beers for this, but it would be pretty cool if each couple was assigned a style of beer. For example, one couple gets Stouts/Porters, one gets Gose/Saison, one Belgian Style Ales, etc. Whatever categories we choose, each couple gets assigned one and they have to provide at least one beer in that style but really as many of their six as they can or want to. This would require opening it up to all breweries most likely, but could bring in some really interesting new beers and some cool variety.
Anyway, another great year! So much fun and thanks again to Beard and Broad for putting this together! Cheers and Happy Holidays!!! 🍻
Megan: Another great great holiday advent-ure calendar in the books!! It’s been so much fun being a part of the best Christmas beer tasting this side of the North Pole. Only using ohio brewed beers added a level of complexity to finding enough beers to fill the 24 days but it also provided us with the opportunity to try breweries I wouldn’t have tried before like the Maumee Bay Blitzen or Lager Heads Winter Mischief.
Some of my favorites were Platform’s Esther, Great Lakes’ Oatmeal Stout, Gold Horn’s Misfit Toys and Sibling Revelry’s Pecan. All of these were either unique flavors or really well balanced. They all had levels of sweetness and spices but none were overly flavored one way or the other. Some of my least favorites included Saucy’s Three Hos and Brew Kettle’s Winter Warmer. Those just weren’t my cup of tea but still provided a fun Christmas experience.
I think it would be difficult repeating the Ohio theme without repeating almost all the same beers. It might be nice to open the theme back up to all breweries. My only suggestion would be to add a rating system. The data analyst inside me wants to crunch the numbers. Maybe we could do a system based off of a five beer emoji scale. It might help the average reader gauge if this is the beer for them.
Again, this has been so much fun. Thanks for letting us be a part of this adventure!
