New Year’s Eve 2011 Beer Tasting
Posted by BoaBeerBlog on February 2, 2012
Before we get too far away from New Year’s Eve 2011…
We were having friends over for New Year’s Eve, so I put together a special menu of beers worthy of such an occasion. When you think of New Year’s Eve, you usually think of popping the cork on a bottle of Champagne. Cracking open a cap on a bottle of beer somehow didn’t seem fitting. So I went looking for big bottles of brew with a cork and cage, so I could pop the corks in celebration of 2012. I found a few cork and cage bottles and other specialty brews, which along with the excellent brews brought by our guests provided a fabulous beer menu to ring in 2012.
The Beer Menu
- Wittekerke Winter White Ale, Harelbeke, Belgium (7.5%), an authentic Belgian Double Wit Ale.
- Winter Solstice Seasonal Ale, Anderson Valley Brewing Company, Boonville, California (6.9%), a traditional Winter Warmer.
- Santa’s Private Reserve, Rogue Ales, Newport, Oregon (6.0%), this Amber Ale has a malty flavor and spicy finish, and is one of my favorite winter seasonals.
- Exit 9 Hoppy Scarlet Ale, Flying Fish Brewing Company, Cherry Hill, New Jersey (9.0%), a richly flavored American Strong Ale that is assertively hopped.
- Yule Tide, Heavy Seas Beer, Baltimore, Maryland (10.0%), a Belgian Tripel Ale.
- Killer Penguin, Boulder Beer Company, Boulder, Colorado (10.0%), a smooth and strong Barleywine Ale.
- Infinium, Boston Beer Company, Boston, Massachusetts and Weihenstephan Brewery, Freising, Germany (10.3%), a unique
Champagne-like beer that is becoming a New Year’s Eve tradition. (I drank a bottle of Infinium on New Year’s Eve 2010.) - Life and Limb, Dogfish Head Craft Brewery, Milton, Delaware and Sierra Nevada Brewing Company, Chico, California (10%), an amazing collaboration beer that has its own web site.
- Brooklyn Brewery Chocolate Stout, Brooklyn, New York (10%), an Imperial Stout with “a luscious deep dark chocolate flavor.”
The entire menu was awesome, but there were a few stand-outs: Exit 9, Killer Penguin, and Life and Limb. I also really liked the Wittekerke White Ale because it was a lot different than your usual dark winter brews.
The New Year’s Eve celebration with friends, especially fellow craft beer enthusiast, made watching 2011 turn into 2012 a memorable beer-drinking experience.
