I first made Johann, the founder of Seef Bier, in San Francisco, when he was here to do a presentation with his importer and the Belgian Trade Delegation as he was beginning to import his beer to the U.S. And I quite like Seef, and have since I first tried it. I saw him most recently last month in Belgium, when he was on hand to pick up the gold medal for Seef he received at the Brussels Beer Challenge. At any rate, this morning he sent me this fun video of Christmas Wishes from Seefbier, a spoof of the popular Christmas carol recorded by Andy Williams, It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year. It really is the most wonderful time to drink beer. Enjoy.
Beer In Ads #1762: Sledding With Schlitz
Thursday’s holiday ad is for Schlitz, from 1953. A rosy-cheeked, happy-looking couple is sledding home with two six-packs of beer, which should definitely make for a happy holiday.
Beer In Ads #1761: Father William Wishes You A Merry Xmas —
Wednesday’s holiday ad is for William Younger’s Scotch Ale, from 1931. Father William I understand, but what the hell is he riding? It looks like an ostrich made of a Christmas ornament with Christmas crackers for legs and a tail of either mistletoe or a sprig of pine tree. The whatever it is, the creature’s wearing a sort of dunce cap with a decorative ball of yarn on top. And lastly, what is on the beast’s neck? Perhaps this is what you see if drink too much Scotch Ale.
Beer In Ads #1760: Help Yourself To Good Cheer
Tuesday’s holiday ad is for Budweiser, from 1953. The first Christmas ad for 2015 is a fairly simple one, showing quite the holiday spread with twelve bottles of Budweiser and a big display piece of the Clydesdales and a beer wagon being pulled by Santa Claus.
Beer In Ads #1741: When You Know Your Beer
Thursday’s Thanksgiving Day ad is another one for Budweiser, this one from 1953. “When You Know Your Beer … It’s Bound To Be Bud, or at least that’s what the disembodied heads seem to be saying at Thanksgiving. That is a fine looking turkey she’s got there, but I’m not so sure about his beer.
Thanksgiving Wishes From The Brookston Beer Bulletin
I just finished my family’s Thanksgiving feast, enjoyed with a 2015 magnum of Our Special Ale from Anchor Brewing, and finished a piece of peanut butter pie. Boy am I stuffed. Before I’m found drooling on the sofa, watching the Packers game, I wanted to take a moment to wish everybody a Happy Thanksgiving.
I’m incredibly thankful that people come here to read what I write, see what I share and drink what I drink. Thank you from the bottom of my pint glass.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Thanksgiving Day is here at last …
The family’s come from far and near.
The kitchen’s smelling mighty nice;
And Dad’s got Ballantine on ice.
That’s the beer we like best …
Deep-brewed to meet the “icebox test.”
We chill the bottles thoroughly …
Flavor that chill can’t kill, you see!
Priceless. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
Beer In Ads #1740: Turkey & Beer
Wednesday’s ad is for Budweiser, from 1964. A surprisingly simple, if busy, ad showing a large turkey that fills the page, laid out on a holiday decorated table, with a bottle of Bud and a full glass of beer next to it. It’s actually making me hungry, and thirsty, for Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow.
Anchor Christmas Day 2015
Time was when today, the Monday before Thanksgiving, was the traditional day on which Anchor’s Our Special Ale — a.k.a. their Christmas Ale — was released each year. Every year since 1975 the brewers at Anchor Brewery have brewed a distinctive and unique Christmas Ale, which is now available from early November to mid-January.
From this year’s press release:
This is the forty-first annual Christmas Ale from the brewers at Anchor. It is sold only from early November to mid–January. The Ale’s recipe is different every year—as is the tree on the label—but the intent with which we offer it remains the same: joy and celebration of the newness of life. Since ancient times, trees have symbolized the winter solstice when the earth, with its seasons, appears born anew.
Our tree for 2015 is the Deodar Cedar (Cedrus deodara), better known as the California Christmas Tree. Native of the Himalayas, it takes its name from the ancient Sanskrit devadaru, meaning timber of the gods. This coniferous evergreen, with its gracefully droopy branches and blue-green needles, has been a San Francisco favorite for over 150 years.
The annual search for the perfect tree for our Christmas Ale label usually takes us far afield. This one began and ended with the search for a parking space near the Brewery! Getting out of the car, we couldn’t help but notice the way the late-afternoon sun danced amid the branches of two lovely Deodars just half a block from Anchor’s front door.
Our longtime label artist Jim Stitt — who has been drawing trees for us since 1975 — loved “our” Deodars and, like us, was amused that they were about as local as local gets! His charming illustration evokes the radiant beauty of our arboreal neighbors as well as the spirit of the season. Cheers from the Anchor brewers!
Even though for the last several years, Anchor’s Christmas Ale is released in early November, I continue to observe Anchor Christmas Day on the Monday before Thanksgiving. I know I’m a sentimental old fool, but I liked that they used to wait that long to release it, even though I understand why they had to abandon it. But some things are worth waiting for. If you agree with me, please join me in drinking a glass of this year’s seasonal release tonight. Happy Anchor Christmas Day!
Home For The Holidays Session
For our 106th Session next month our host will be yours truly, who writes this here Brookston Beer Bulletin. For my topic, I’ve chosen Holiday Beers, by which I mean this.
For seasonal beers, the Solstice/Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanza/Mithra time of the year is my mostest favorite. This past weekend, we had our fifteenth annual holiday beer tasting for the Celebrator Beer News, and sampled 42 of this year’s Christmas beers. Here’s how I’ve described them in the introduction of the tasting notes for the holiday edition each year:
Holiday beers are by design no one style, but are a chance for individual breweries to let their talent and imagination run wild. At the holidays, when people stop their busy lives and share some precious time with family and friends, the beer they choose should be equally as special as the time they’re sharing. So a holiday beer should be made to impress, to wow its audience, to stand out. That’s the only criteria that should be met by one of these beers. Will it impress? Different breweries, thankfully, do this in many, many different ways. Some use unusual spices or fruits, some use special malts or hops, some use other uncommon ingredients like spruce or rye, and some make a style that itself is unusual. So there’s nothing to tie these beers together apart from their celebration of the season. That makes it both a delight and a challenge to judge. Ultimately, perhaps more than any other tasting, these beers are simply a matter of what you like and our judging is a matter of what we like. So try them and discover for yourself the many flavors of this holiday season.
As I said, I really enjoy the variety of holiday and winter seasonals, and they often seem especially well-suited to colder weather. I don’t really care what they’re Celebrating, be it:
And despite the fact that the rightwing nutjobs insist there’s a war on Christmas because people use “holidays” to be inclusive instead of “Merry Christmas,” a lot of seasonal beer labels from the first half of the 20th century used “holiday” rather than Christmas. And what do you know, civilization didn’t end. And that’s usually the time that conservatives point to as being what we need to return to, when America was a more innocent place, pre-1960s. But they drank holiday beers, what do you know? And as far as I can tell, nobody freaked the fuck out like they do today. After the brouhaha with Starbucks cups, it actually made me want to go to Starbucks — a place I don’t normally frequent — just because of how ridiculous it all was.
So for this Session, write about whatever makes you happy, so long as it involves holiday beers.
- Discuss your favorite holiday beer.
- Review one or more holiday beers.
- Do you like the idea of seasonal beers, or loathe them?
- What’s your idea of the perfect holiday beer?
- Do have a holiday tradition with beer?
- Are holiday beers released too early, or when should they be released?
- Do you like holiday beer festivals?
Those are just a few suggestions, celebrate the holiday beers in your own way. Happy Holidays!
So start your holiday celebration early. It’s never too soon. To participate in the December Session, on or around Friday, December 4, write your post, then leave a comment below or shoot me an e-mail or copy me (@Brookston) in your Twitter feed with your link.
International Tongue Twister Day
Today is International Tongue Twister Day, a day to celebrate those expressions that tend to tie your tongue in knots. A tongue-twister is defined as “a phrase that is designed to be difficult to articulate properly, and can be used as a type of spoken (or sung) word game. Some tongue-twisters produce results which are humorous (or humorously vulgar) when they are mispronounced, while others simply rely on the confusion and mistakes of the speaker for their amusement value.” Here are several I managed to uncover that involve beer. Enjoy.
Brewer Braun brews brown beer (Braubauer Braun braut braunes Bier)
Bold and brave beer brewers always prepare bitter, brown, Bavarian beer (Biedere brave Bierbauerburschen bereiten beständig bitteres braunes bayrisches Bier)
Rory the warrior and Roger the worrier were reared wrongly in a rural brewery.
An old seabear sits on the pier and drinks a pint of beer.
A canner can can anything that he can,
But a canner can’t can a can, can he?
Do drunk ducks and drakes drown?
Betty Botter had some bitter,
“But,” she said, “this bitter’s bitter.
If I brew this bitter better,
It would make my batter bitter.
But a bit of better butter,
That would make my batter better.”
So she bought a bit of butter –
Better than her bitter butter –
And she baked it in her batter;
And the batter was not bitter.
So ’twas better Betty Botter
Bought a bit of better bitter.
The bitters Betty Botter bought could make her batter bitter, so she thought she’d better buy some better bitters!
Note: the blue circle is the pump handle for Ad Hop Tongue Twister, a beer from Ad Hop Brewing in Liverpool, England.