Holiday Beers - What are they and why are they here?
Greetings,
As the end of the year rolls around, holiday beers roll out. This is an interesting niche specie of beer because it ranges all the way from very high alcohol, high hopped products to things that taste more like pumpkin pie and in some cases, like candy cane. Where did these beers come from? Why are they here?
The granddaddy of them all must be the Anchor brewery “Our Special Ale.” Legend has it the very first “Our Special Ale” was actually the bridal ale brewed by Fritz Maytag for his wedding. I have fond memories of anxiously anticipating the arrival of kegs of this product at a place called CCC in Manhattan in the winter of 1980.
What were being called microbrews were just beginning to take root in Colorado and California . However, the Europeans decided that this was a good time to develop the North American market and did so with a passion. Almost all of these beers were consistently copper colored relatively highly hopped and certainly highly priced. The majority of the market in the United States remained golden colored mass-produced beer.
In major urban areas people with disposable income were able to support the beer importers with an almost insatiable thirst for the unusual. Naturally, there was a fascination with high alcohol beers. At the time the Swiss beer Samichlaus was the highest alcohol beer produced, and was also produced during the Christmas season. This made it a “Christmas Beer” and it was marketed as such.
In the part of the world where beer is considered part of daily life, as the weather gets colder the beers get stronger. Winters in a climate that produces four to six months of snow a year call for hearty appetites, and hefty beers. The cuisines of traditional beer strongholds in Germany , France and the United Kingdom offer a seemingly unlimited list of hearty stews, braised meats and roasted birds. These dishes all demand beers that can stand up to them. Once the Europeans discovered that they could export these higher alcohol beers to the North America and call them “Holiday Beers”, the race was on.
With an understandable desire to emulate the European Brewers, the American microbrewers also began turning out relatively high alcohol beers for the winter seasons. To the delight of marketing departments everywhere, seasonal beers have become part of the beer culture of North America . To the delight of Brewers, the beer market of North America seems to have no distinction when it comes to the type of beer they drink during a season. It is not unusual, ring the dog days of summer, to see people enjoying a pint of double Bock. Likewise, on the coldest day in winter, wheat beers are called for. Nevertheless, brewers are glad to persevere and present each season with a certain style of beer.
And so, in the end, what is a holiday beer? The answer to that question is that a holiday beer is a beer that a brewer produces to show off the best attributes of his brewery and of his recipe in the winter season.
In the end,it is the natural progression of beer styles from the cycle of Lite.
Cheers!
Peter LaFrance
( peter.lafrance@beerbasics.com / http://www.beerbasics.com )
