All I Got for Christmas is Beer

Instead of milk and cookies, I left a few of these beers out for Santa and I'm sure I'll be on the "Nice" list for the rest of my life.

Winter Witte
5.8% ABV

Ellicottville Brewing Company
Witbier w/ Coriander & Orange


EBC is one of my favorite breweries because they make some good (and sometimes weird) beers. The Blueberry Wheat and Nut Brown are fine and dandy, but the Black Jack Oatmeal Stout and the cleverly named Pantius Droppus (Imperial Pale Ale) are incredible. Don't get me started on the Chocolate Cherry Bomb...

This particular beer, the Winter Witte, I've never tried before so as you can imagine, I'm pretty excited. Here we go!

An almost headless, hazy golden beer when poured out, this baby is brewed with coriander and orange peel, and LORD can you tell. The aroma is full of hops and orange peel, but the taste is like no other beer I've ever tried before- winter or otherwise. The hops and orange are still present in the first sip, but the coriander completely takes over. I don't know if it's a mix between the orange/hops/coriander, but this beer takes on almost a vanilla flavor, creamy and smooth and out-of-this-world. I was a bit taken aback when I first drank it (the taste wasn't overpowering, but it was very unexpected), but now I love it and it's a the top of my holiday favorites list.

It has a good balance of wheat malts and citrusy hops, but the way the beer feels in your mouth is pretty strange. It has a kick to it, almost like some of that zestiness from the orange and coriander came over into the carbonation. It's another interesting aspect to an extraordinary brew.


Old Man Winter Ale
7.2% ABV
Southern Tier Brewing Company
Old Ale

Southern Tier is in the same boat as EBC in my opinion. Great beers that never disappoint, ST has brought us gems like Hop Sun (Summer Wheat), Raspberry Wheat a great IPA and, my personal favorite, Phin and Matt's.

But today, we have the breweries take on a winter ale, and it sounds promising. Southern Tier describes this beer as a "Liquid Winter Wonderland" and they're right on the mark. They go on to say:

With the onset of winter, the brewer’s mind turns to providing warmth. For our winter seasonal, we offer a rich and complex amalgam of hops and barley that will put the feeling back in your toes and lift your spirits above the snow. OMW throws a deep and inviting hue with a thickness that clings to the glass and the warmth of an open flame. Because of its high alcohol content, Old Man is a heady brew that encourages sipping and pondering its essential richness. Drink it fresh now, or cellar a few bottles to see how this old man becomes wiser with age.

A light brown/amber/gold in color, this 7.2% ABV (Yeah, I can't believe it either) old ale is perfect for winter. It has a nice toasted malt aroma with a little bit of sweetness (toffee/caramel). The toasty malts jump over into the taste, making this a pretty heavy, dark beer. I like the hops that show up at the end, mixing with the sweetness of the malt- the flavor really sticks around in your mouth. It has a little bit of fruitiness to it (the hop/malt mix would be my guess), kind of like a raisin meeting an orange(?). I'm not sure exactly what spices went into this brew, but it's got a bit of that as well- cinnamon for sure. If you're snowed in like I am right now, it's a great beer to have on hand.

You might be asking, where is that 7.2% alcohol I've been hearing so much about. The answer: all on the back end. Wow. I almost need a chaser for this bad boy. If there were only two words to describe this beer, they would be "malt" and "alcohol".

Prima Pils
5.3% ABV
Victory Brewing Company
German Pilsener


Victory and I have a long running history with each other- and not a good one. When I first turned 21 and could drink legally, a local bar had a contest of sorts. They gave out punch-cards with 20 different beers on them- if you get all the holes punched, you get a free shirt and a $20 bar tab. Naturally, my friends and I wanted to be in on this. So the weeks passed and the holes started adding up until we only had three beers left to drink. Two were Samuel Smiths and one was Victory. All were horrible (this was when I first started drinking actual beers, not just Keystone). The last one I drank was the Victory ESB which, if you haven't had it, is an extremely intense and bitter brew (ESB- Extra Special/Strong Bitter). It was horrible... but I got that fuckin shirt.

I've grown to like Victory beers though, and this one I was excited to try because I really like V's HopDevil Ale and I figured this one would be pretty similar.

A light-golden in color (it's a pilsener) with a quickly vanishing head, this brew has the aroma of mild hops and malt, which is maybe just a bit too strong (again, it's a pilsener). The smell transfers over to the taste just like I expected it to, nice and malty with strong hops on the back end. It's a perfect example of a pilsener: clean and refreshing hops with malt cut into it. Not much else to say about this guy, other than I'd drink it again.

Fire Rock
5.80% ABV
Kona Brewing Company
American Pale Ale

In my last post, I drank a beer from the Kona Brewing Company that had passion fruit in it, and while it wasn't that great, I wanted to see what else this brewery has to offer. Well son of a bitch, I found another one and from what I hear, it's fucking awesome.

A nice amber/copper color with a pretty minimal head, this beer smells like straight up citrus hops and caramel malt. The taste is pretty unique, and I can see why people rave about this particular beer. It's sweet, hoppy, a little bitter (maybe even metallic) from the malts, but there's something on the backend that I can't really describe- kind of like caramel and toasted malt but that's not it and I still can't quite figure out what it is (I could drink 100 of these and not figure it out, I imagine). A great beer, I would drink this again and again.

I think the name of this beer had me a bit confused. I understand that the brewery is in Hawaii and fire rock/lava/hawaii ha-ha, but where does the fire come in on this beer? It has a bit of fire in the roasted malt flavor I guess, but I was expecting something different I suppose. I'm not saying this is a bad beer, but the name is nothing like the taste. I need to try more beers from this brewery.

5.8% seems pretty high for a pale ale, maybe that's the fire?