It's the most wonderful time of the year for beer drinkers

This will stand as my first official post chronicling the new Christmas/winter beers I am trying this year. There is no better time of year for trying new beers. Just about every brewery and brewpub puts out a special beer at this time of year. There is no set style definition for a winter/Christmas beer. These beers are just a chance for the brewer to try something different and offer it as a gift to their dedicated customers. Another plus is that they might gain some new customers in the form of people who want something festive to drink around the holidays and see something with a beautiful holiday or winter scene on the label or a description that mentions an ingredient that the shopper might have never thought they would see in a beer.

Some of my favorites are Tröegs Mad Elf, Samichlaus, De Dolle Stille Nacht and Jolly Pumpkin Noel de Calabaza. Sometimes they can be a familiar taste that I know I can only have around this time of year and they conjure memories of times sharing those tastes with friends and loved ones on Christmases past. Other times, the spices that are in the beer just make them taste like Christmas, taking me back to a time before I knew what beer was and a great Christmas treat was a spiced cookie with milk that I would share with Santa Claus on his busiest night. Still others are just heavy, warming, comfort beers that burn the belly just enough to keep the winter chill out of my bones. But this is supposed to be a post about the new Christmas/winter beers that I'm trying so I'll get on with that.

On Thanksgiving weekend I tried Kulmbacher Eisbock, High & Mighty Home For The Holidays and Huvila Arctic Circle Ale.

While the Kulmbacher isn't a Christmas beer or even really marketed strongly as a winter beer, it still belongs in this category because the eisbock style was created in the winter when a regular bock beer was left in the cold and froze. When the ice was scraped away there was a more flavorful, concentrated beer with a concentrated alcohol content as well. This particular modern version weighs in at 9.2% ABV and is brewed in Kulmbach, Germany where the label proclaims the first freezing incident occurred. The beer is also labeled as being "the original German eisbock." What better time of year would there be to drink such a beer? The beer was nice, but not very special. I'm not a huge fan of lagers, but this is one of the good ones. It was sweet, malty, full-bodied and warming.

The Home For The Holidays beer is a 7% ABV brown ale brewed in Massachusetts. It was better than I expected, but I really picked it up because profits from the beer will be donated to Iraq War veterans organizations. It's a great way to support returning troops. The beer, itself, is a real malt bomb that is rather nice at first, but becomes cloyingly sweet by the end,where some metallic hops also introduce themselves to the tongue. If you try this one make sure you share it with someone, because a little is nice and more than that is just OK. It isn't a spiced beer, but it did seem to be somewhat Christmasy.

Huvila Arctic Circle Ale is marketed as a "special winter ale." It is brewed in Finland to an ABV of 7.3%. The more unusual ingredients in this beer are juniper twigs and dark rye malts. I'd have to put this one in the same group as Mad Elf and Samichlaus — they are all beers that I can't fully explain the reasons why I like them. This one was kind of like juice, liquor and beer all mixed together. Which, I guess, is also a little bit like the other two in the group. Except with them I would probably say wine instead of juice since they have almost double the alcohol content of this one. It was fruity and malty, with notes of dark bread, toasted malt and a little smoke. It almost seemed barrel-aged. There were also slight notes of whiskey or port, a little cola, a hint of chocolate, toffee and hops. All in all a very nice winter beer and the best I had in the category that weekend.

Look for the next installment about the most wonderful time of the year for beer drinkers soon.