The Christmas beers worth stocking up on
Beers for the festive season are less a style and more of a tradition spanning history and cultures. From the Vikings saluting the winter solstice to cheering up the poor in British workhouses, it seems that beer has always been popular in the colder months.
One of my favourite Christmas beer facts is that Stella was first released in 1926 by Brouwerij Artois as a festive tipple, believed to have been a lager-style riff on the established tradition of drinking strong Scotch ales, or wee heavy, that somehow made its way from the outskirts of Edinburgh to Belgium.
While the brewing of rich and malty Scotch ales is not as common as it once was, Christmas beers have taken hold and take many forms, from brews that have all the subtlety of a Yankee Candle to elegant barrel-aged ales and everything in between. In the spirit of the season though, I haven’t included anything that got less than 3/5 stars in my taste test.