The 7 Beers of Christmas

Any beer blog can bring you the 12 beers of Christmas but here at Dumbarton's Beer we live by a less ambitious mantra: expect nothing and you won't be disappointed. With that we offer you 7 brews you might consider as you dig your way out of the northeast's storm of the century.

Day One - Heavy Seas Yule Tide

Brought to you by Clipper City, Yule Tide is a Belgian style tripel ale. It's sweet, malty, complex, and flavorful. In short, it's pretty much the same thing you will find in any other run of the mill Belgian triple. Were it not a holiday special we would think nothing of this being an utterly ordinary brew. But it's the Christmas Season* and our expectations are higher (as they always are just before Santa crashes us into reality).

The Heavy Seas line is the creative end of Clipper City so maybe it's too burdensome to expect an exponential increase in creativity but throwing a Santa cap on a skull and cross bones and calling it special doesn't make the cut. We know what CC is going for but the label probably shouldn't call the 22 ounce bottles "extrAARGHdinary" or call this triple "an avalance of flavor."

You would be wrong to assume we don't like this beer. In fact, we rather enjoy Yule Tide. It's greatest sin is that when you're in the local beer shop you pick up the Yule feeling like you found a special Christmas gem. As we mentioned, it's flavorful and complex - like a solid triple should be. Tripels can sometimes be much for our pallette so 22 ounce bottles are quite perfect. Just enough for us to have a couple of pints without getting ourselves in too deep.

*"Christmas Season" generically refers to this time of year - a time that is sacred to many religions. So, Happy Christmas, Merry Chanukah, Happy Kwanza, kiss my ass, kiss his ass...