Beers with Christmas Dinner

My favourite meal of the year is tomorrow! The fridge is bursting with food and the boxes of beer in the garage are constantly calling me. Here’s what I’ll be opening on Christmas day...

The sipping beer for the morning and during the cooking will be Kernel’s terrific Table Beer. I think I’m in love/obsessed with it. So light yet so excitingly overflowing with flavour and juicy hop aroma – my early Christmas present to myself was buying a bunch of these. I’ll probably also open a Thornbridge Tzara which is one of the best new British beers this year, I reckon.

Pre-dinner livener will be an appetite-grabbing gueuze. That brisk carbonation, the tartness and the dry finish makes me ferociously hungry. I’ve got a Drie Fonteinen that’s looking more delicious by the hour.

Starter this year will be pea soup. Simple: smoked bacon, leek, garlic, peas, water, thyme and mint. With that will be a Westmalle Tripel where the slight sweet sulphurous edge is going to mirror the depth of the alliums. It’s also another beer which I’ve come to love this year.

Main course is the full-on turkey experience. Bird, roast potatoes, every kind of veg you can fit on a plate, stuffing, pigs in blankets, gravy in the gaps. It’s a mountainous meal and a tough one to tackle with a beer... I reckon it’s the veg and gravy that you want the beer to match with. I’m going with Fuller’s Past Master’s Old Burton which is rich with nuttiness, there’s hints of chocolate, berries and earthiness, while staying wonderfully light and not overpowering – my gravy gets made with port so that's work wonderfully. 

Dessert is always Christmas pudding, obviously. Richly fruity, boozy and bolstered by brandy butter, you need a big beer to handle it. I’ve got some BrewDog Tokyo* or Black Tokyo Horizon which will be up for the job. Port-like, deep with chocolate and dark stewed fruit plus an uplifting floral backnote which keeps it fresh.

Then after dessert I flop onto the sofa with a packet of Rennie – anyone who gets out a cheese board at this point is an obscene food pervert. Maybe later in the evening I’ll go back for some more Table Beer or just grab random nice bottles from the cupboard. Or, more likely, I’ll move over to wine when I visit the in-laws.

Merry Christmas!

(Top image from here)

Bath Ales Festivity

You know how you’ve scanned your local supermarket shelves so many times that you know exactly what beers are where...  it means that when something new arrives it sits on that shelf like the brightest bauble on the Christmas tree shouting "look at me, you haven’t tried me before!"

That's exactly what happened with Bath Ales’ Festivity. That tinsel-pink bottle label and orange hare jumped straight out at me. I walked past it the first time (after a quick read of the label, of course) only returning after a friend from university, James, said that it was one of his favourite beers at this time of year. I’m glad I did return.

A seasonal porter, it’s almost opaque except for where the flashing Christmas tree lights just glimmer through at the edge of the glass. The bottle says rum, coffee and vanilla and, the power of suggestion aside, that’s what you get, plus a delicious depth of chocolate, the sort you’d get from an amazing milkshake. It’s full-bodied, smooth and ever-so tasty – cocoa, a little brown sugar and vanilla but it never gets over-sweet (not that it stayed in my glass long enough to notice), balanced by a savouriness and a subtle, nutty-earthy bitterness. Yummy is definitely the right word to use for this beer as there’s a silky unctuousness to it with a chocolate richness tempered by moreish glugability. It’s the nicest bottled beer I’ve had from the supermarket in ages and definitely the best Christmas-themed beer I’ve had this year. I’m going back to Waitrose today to buy a couple more.

Anyone had this yet? Any other festive seasonal bottles worth drinking or are they mostly just gimmicky and as disappointing as an empty stocking on Christmas Day?

Beer with roast turkey and all the trimmings

Christmas Day. A day filled with presents, family, food and beer. A day when my favourite meal of the year is served. A day when an appropriate beer is needed to go with the meal. A day when it’s fine to open a bottle of something nice at 9am and carry on going straight through to passing out in the evening. A day to look forward to each year.

Breakfast is for coffee stout. Something tongue-coating and thick, rich and warming. Any Mikkeller Beer Geek will do the job and set you up for a day of fun. Between breakfast and dinner is a free-for-all before the turkey comes out and gets carved beside a vegetable mountain.

Roast turkey and all the trimmings is a fun challenge for a beer. What you want is something that’s full of flavour with enough booze to give body and sweetness; not too much bitterness as it’ll kill the vegetables and enhance their bitter edges; sweetness is key to buffer the richness of the food; a little spice or Christmassy depth of fruit cake work nicely with everything on the plate. I haven’t decided what’ll be on my dinner table yet but I’ve got a few choices...

Fuller’s Vintage 2010. A fruity-nuttiness plays with a dry bitterness and plenty of malt depth to deal with whatever your fork brings. Any other Vintage would also work very well but there’s something nice about having the 2010 before the year is out (this Vintage is also ready to go right now).

Chimay Blue. This is what I had last year and it’s a winner. Dried fruit with hints of festive spice and an uplifting carbonation. It works so well and the beer’s available in Waitrose so easy to get.

Adnams Sole Bay. A big, fancy bottle, handsome on the table and something a little different. I haven’t tried it yet but I’ve got one in waiting and it sounds like a great beer to try with dinner – Belgian-style, little spice, fruity esters, Nelson Sauvin hops.

Goose Island Sofie. One of the Belgian Goose Island beers, this is 6.5% and aged in wine barrels with orange peel so what you get is a dry, almost-tart beer with a big depth from the orange but also vanilla and body from the barrel it’s matured in. It’s the white wine alternative; it’s also a great beer.

Marble Chocolate Dubbel. What a beer. Spicy yeast, lots of chocolate, lots of body to chase down those vegetables. A richer, darker choice but a good one if you’ve got a bottle hanging around and fancy something different.

I don’t do beer with Christmas pudding. By that stage I’m more stuffed than the turkey was two hours earlier. Later in the day the bottles come back out again, but this year I have no idea what and I’ll be grabbing them depending on what I fancy.

Beers for the turkey: what have you got? And do you have a breakfast beer planned in?

My Christmas Drinking

I drank a lot over Christmas. My usual hoarding tendencies were pushed aside as I (almost) freely pulled bottles from the cupboard and ripped the cap off before I could even think twice, which resulted in a festive-flurry of high-end beer-drinking.

This post is ridiculously long and basically a drunk-diary (for more of that see Rabid about Beer) but if I leave it any longer it’ll lose relevance so I figured that I might as well just get it all out in one big, horrifying splurge.

Christmas Eve: Back home at my parents’. I grabbed three big bottles from the cupboard to share with my dad. Mikkeller’s USAlive (Tomahawk, Cascade, Amarillo and brett – pfwoar) is fantastically fruity and peppery with that lift of brett funk, while all being quite understated and very drinkable. Moor’s Old Freddy Walker really was like Christmas pudding in a glass, just with some added chocolate and flowery hops (I’ve had the cask version of this and it’s even better). Port Brewing’s Santa’s Little Helper 2008 finished the night (I couldn’t resist – what better day to drink it on?). It’s a great stout. It tastes just how a 10% stout should.

Christmas Day: King of drinking days. Mikkeller Beer Geek Brunch Weasel kicked it off. It’s one helluva beer: massively roasty and full bodied, unctuous, smooth, rich. I love it. As a pre-Christmas treat I bought myself an Orval glass so I filled this next. It was bottled in November, so fresh, but it just confirmed it as (probably) my favourite beer. I like it so much because whenever I have it, it’s both familiar but always a little bit different and always interesting. Then, as it’s Christmas, I took out a Westvleteren 8 and drank some hype. I love the smell of the Westvleterens, this fruit-bready-appley-tea aroma. Flavour-wise it’s dried fruit, bread, chocolate and teacake. Dinner time! With the turkey I had a Chimay Blue 2008 (a Grande one). The fruity, spicy, bready flavour worked perfect with the bird, with the carbonation lifting the richness of it all and lending an earthy sweetness (that the Westvleteren didn’t have) to combat the vegetable mountain. After dinner came a BrewDog 77 Lager, then a Moor JJJ IPA, a 5am Saint and a Saints&Sinners Insomniac. The 77 perked me up. The Moor kicked my arse. The 5am continues to surprise me. The Insomniac finished me off nicely. Good day. I got lots of cool presents, spent lots of time with my family, Lauren and her family, and my 6-week-old nephew Frankie was dressed as santa.

Boxing Day: A let’s-allow-me-to-recover-a-bit day. A glass of red wine with lunch and a bottle of Delerium Christmas in the evening. The beer was like a vision on Santa – massive red body and a fluffy white head.

December 27th: I went to Faversham to drink with Pete and David Brissenden. I challenged them to find me a decent pint of Shepherd Neame. They failed. Then Pete took us to a pub which serves his beer. But that was pretty good, so I can’t complain. Then home for some bottles. Starting with Barry’s homebrew. His Wild Hopped beer, which I’ll write more about soon, had this fantastic hint of strawberry which I chased thirstily around the glass. His Schwarzer Peat Porter has distant smoke in the nose but then when you taste it it fills your mouth with a rich body, a billowing smoke, fruits and chocolate – very good (and again I’m constantly surprised by just how good his homebrew is... and it makes me want to brew, too). There was a Lost Abbey 10 Commandments, a 9% Belgian ale with honey, raisins, rosemary and – I think – brett. They were all in there, although the brett was hiding well away. It’s pretty good, estery spice, herby, fruity. A Hanssens Kriek came out to make us pucker our lips. We had some dinner of leftovers, which was delicious (I totally adore Christmas leftovers). After dinner we opened a Westvleteren 12. I wasn’t content with just having the 8 so went straight for the big dog. What made this interesting was that we poured it and then sat around the table for 20 minutes discussing it: what makes a great beer, what makes the best beer in the world, subjectivity, hype. For that reason alone it’s a great beer, even if it doesn’t taste like the best beer in the world. Then came some more of Barry’s beer, this time his Oaked Barley Wine, of which only 12 bottles exist (and we thought that drinking W12 was rare!). We universally loved it. Big, uncompromising, fruity-bitter but then with this current of vanilla-oak running straight down the middle, softening any hop harshness. And we continued... At this point came a massive cheese board with a bottle of 1985 port (those Brissenden’s know how to drink and eat!). And finally, just to top it all off, we had some Tactical Nuclear Penguin. I tried it before but this time I got a proper taste and got to think about it some more. The aroma is seriously good – fresh bread, berries, distant Islay. It looks great too as the long legs stream down the glass. Taste-wise it’s an intense experience. It’s fun but challenging, it’s beer but it’s not. There’s a richness to it, a lot of fruit, that earthy Islay quality and a boozy kick. Pretty damn incredible.

After this came a ‘quiet’ day when I just drank a few bottles, the highlight was an E.S. Bam (currently a bargain at beermerchants) was like a mini-Orval, all peppery and bretty.

Then another big day. Lauren and I met with Mark and his girlfriend Sarah and Pete and his girlfriend Heather and we took our beer widows on a beer tour of London. We started in the Market Porter (can't remember what), then the Princess Louise (OBB of course), the Porterhouse (Oyster Stout, Plain and Hophead) and the White Horse. I literally spent a small fortune on beer that day, especially in the Pony where we opened bottle after bottle of great beer (I actually wrote it as a blog post but didn’t post it, the post was ‘I went to the White Horse and I drank...’ and it was like that memory word game). This is what we had between us in the White Horse (we were sharing, of course): A Baladin Open, an Anchor Christmas 2008, Little Creatures Pale Ale, Rodenbach Grand Cru, 3 Fonteinen Oude Geuze, Orval, Otley Notso, Rochefort 10, Goose Island IPA, Cantillon Rose de Gambrinus, Gales Prize Old Ale 2007 and a Flying Dog Wild Dog Gonzo. That’s pretty good drinking. The highlights were the Baladin Open, the 3 Fonteinen and the Wild Dog Gonzo. Cracking. The fish and chips was very good too. As was the (wonderfully tolerant and beautiful and) lovely company.

I’m still not done. December 30th: I had to go to Bluewater. It was hellish. But on the way home I went to The Bull, Horton Kirby. There was some Thornbridge Brother Rabbit and Rakau and a lot of Marble Manchester Bitter. The Marble was just incredibly good, so vibrantly fruity, so drinkable. It inspired this post. At home that night I opened the three Williams Bros beers which I wrote about yesterday.

New Years Eve (getting there now): I went to Lauren’s parents’ house. I started with a Lindeman’s Cuvee Rene and it was perfect: sprightly, light, zesty, sharp, fruity and smooth with a woody dryness underneath. Fuck Champagne, drink Gueuze, that’s what I say. Then I just opened a few BrewDog’s: Punk, Punk Monk, Paradox Smokehead. And there was a just-past-it Port Brewing Hop 15, which still packed a delicious punch of hops. I saw in the New Year drinking Kwak, which was a little disappointing, but whatever...

New Years Day (still going): My dad’s birthday so obviously more beer. I cooked dinner too: Steak and ale (Fuller’s London Porter) pie and Pete’s chocolate pots for dessert. We drank: some of the Porter which is a roasty, smoky, rich treat; a Deus (why the hell not?); a Fuller’s ESB; and a sweet kriek with the pudding. Then my body pretty much gave up on me.

I’ve had one beer between then and now; a 5am Saint, which fascinates me more and more every time I drink it – I think it’s great.

So there we go. A prolonged period of excess (followed by January: a prolonged period of exercise). But what a great time it was!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas everyone, lots of love and festive cheer and all that. May the next few days be spent with friends and family and be filled with good food, good drink, happiness and lots of presents.

I finish work at 12pm on Christmas Eve and intend to pretty much stay drunk from then until January 4th when I go back to work again. I’ve got some great beers ready to open and share and I can’t wait.

If you are stuck for presents then what about a share in BrewDog? It seems they need people to buy a few more... They want £2.3million from Equity for Punks but the deal was always that they needed to raise £500,000 in shares by January 8th 2010 for any of the investments to be valid. They’ve now revealed that they are still £175,000 short of that target. Essentially this means they have so far sold about 1400 shares and need to sell another 760 in the next two weeks or they have to hand back the £325,000 with their tail between their legs. I wasn’t going to mention it but then got a great email from a British brewer (not one from BrewDog!) and here’s part of what it said:

…Now, I don't know them, or want a job with them (it's fucking freezing in Scotland ALL YEAR ROUND) but as a young (!) brewer, I recognise their importance to craft brewing in this country. Let's not forget that Dickie was at Thornbridge when Jaipur and St Petersburg came out, giving the microbrewers a right kick up the arse at the time I was just starting my brewing career. What about Hardcore IPA, and its ability to hold its own against the big DIPAs of the US? And do you not get butterflies in your tummy when they release a new beer (and not just when it’s the strongest beer ever)?

Imagine craft beer for the masses (which a big new brewery will achieve), AND the Abstrakt range for us beer geeks!! I know the business investment side is flawed, and I know your thoughts on the whole thing. But dare you not dream? ...I'm desperately worried they won't do it, and I really, really want them to.

This investment is as much about buying into a mentality as it is a financial one. I think they spiked their own drink with the Tokyo* thing and that was a bad move, but they know that now. BrewDog are at the exciting forefront of current British brewing. Love or hate them they make people talk and more people know about beer because of them (and British craft beer is getting seen and heard further away). Luckily for them their beers stand up to all of this attention and taste great. They are young, they are determined, they are passionate and they are doing great things for beer in the UK. If you can afford it and you want to be a part of the future of quality beer in the UK, then go on, treat yourself to a Christmas present and buy a share in BrewDog. Wooly Dave has written a great piece on this too and Brewdog have posted a Call to Arms. I really want BrewDog to succeed in all of this.

In other news, I’ve now booked my flight to the US. I’m going to San Francisco on 4th February for Beer Week (flying back 11th). I’m not bothering with the Extreme Beer Festival now and will focus on SFBW, ripping IPAs and monster steaks. Brilliant. My trip also coincides perfectly with the release of Pliny the Younger and I’ll be at the Double IPA Fest where it debuts outside of the brewery bar. If anyone wants to come then get your flights and I’ll see you there! My next job is to make a list of all the places I need to go and all the beers I need to drink. Could take a while...

Before I go, there’s still time to give your votes for the Beer Awards of the Year and if anyone is interested in the Sheffield Tweet-Up on January 23rd 2010 then just say – everyone is welcome. Oh, and if you haven’t seen them then you really must watch the Elf’d Blogger videos (1 and 2) created by Tandleman – brilliant!

Merry Christmas!

And the picture is from here.

Beers for Christmas Day

December 25th is my favourite day of the year. I just love it. It’s also the only day of the year when I can fearlessly open a beer for breakfast and drink through until I fall asleep watching TV, having eaten and drunk way too much. After yesterday’s post about the fantasy Christmas, this one is about what I will be opening.

I plan my Christmas drinking carefully and I save up bottles all year for it. I match not only the food but the mood and the time (which is important in a 12-hour-plus drinking marathon). My usual day starts at my parents’ with presents from Santa. Then the first beer. Then we play with whatever toys we get. Then another beer. And another. Then dinner and more beer. Then Lauren comes over and we open more presents. And a beer. Then we go to Lauren’s house (she drives, of course) and eat and drink some more with her family.

I wrote about last Christmas here and it’s interesting to see my choices (it’s always interesting to look back and see how far this thing has developed). I had Innis & Gunn’s Triple Matured beer with the turkey and it was completely perfect – fruity, oaky, slightly sour. Whatever your thoughts on I&G, that was a wicked-good match. As for the others... there’s more beer maturity in my choices now, although I’m guessing next year I’ll look back and think ‘why did I have that?’

Here’s what I’m having this year, sharing them with my Dad and hopefully my sister’s boyfriend:

It starts on Christmas Eve. I'll be at home with a few bottles. I have a Port Brewing Santa's Little Helper, which seems appropriate, there's also a Delerium Noel to keep up the festive cheer. There are plenty of bottles around so we'll pick some more depending on what we feel like drinking.

Christmas Day starts with coffee stout for breakfast. Always. I have Saints & Sinners Insomniac or Mikkeller’s Beer Geek Brunch Weasel and one of them will get opened. Then we’ll want something zingy and light to get us through the morning. I have a big bottle of Mikkeller’s USAlive which is ready to go. It’s 8% and should be like drinking c-hopped fizz with a little funk – sounds perfect to me. By this point we’ll be getting hungry, so a pre-dinner bottle of Orval, perhaps, or a palate-sharpening gueuze. My Dad, preferring dark beers, might go for a mild.

Then dinner comes. In the past I’ve attempted to pair to starter, main and dessert but the food alone is a battle of stamina and strength and adding three different glasses of beer in there just gets a bit unnecessary, so this year it’s one bottle – one big bottle made for sharing. The food is always turkey and all the trimmings. My favourite meal of the year on my favourite day of the year, so it needs something pretty damn good to go with it. I haven’t decided for definite yet but it’ll either be Deus or a Chimay Blue. The Deus will gently wander in offering sweetness and spice and a great lightness to work perfectly with everything on the plate. The Chimay is dried fruit and bready sweetness with a great complexity to plonk itself right in the middle of your tongue and let everything work around it. Both will be great. If I was serving the bottles between more than two or three then I’d open both.

After dinner I won’t be fit for much but a nice, big stout to sip on will be good (although I virtually cleared my stock on Stout Night). Or a Fuller’s Vintage. Or maybe Moor’s Old Freddie Walker – liquid Christmas pudding, as the label says. At Lauren’s in the evening I'll probably take a few bottles but won’t get around to drinking too much as I'll be at full capacity from all the food. I’m sure there’ll be a special bottle in there to share with her Dad – I’ll raid my garage on the way.

That’s the plan at the moment (although I may find something else hidden away in the cupboard when I get home). Sounds like an awesome day to me. What will you be drinking?

The Hop Press: Fantasy Christmas Drinking

Tomorrow I’ll be posting the beers that I will hopefully be drinking on Christmas Day but this one for The Hop Press is about the fantasy line up of beers that I wish I could be drinking - you know me, I always want to drink what I can’t get, the special bottles that are rare and famous and ‘Best’ listed – I’m a fickle, thirsty beer geek.

What would your fantasy Christmas Day of drinking involve? Rare bottles, favourite casks, festively themed beers? You also get presents - a weekend away and one bottle of beer, plus you can choose the movie you watch on the day.

The full post is here, complete with my choices.

Christmas Leftovers

Christmas Day is my favourite day of the year and Christmas dinner is my favourite meal of the year. My best food-day of the year is Boxing Day, when the piles of leftovers (which we were sickened to look at the day before) become glorious mountains of unlimited joy.

King is the Christmas Leftover Sandwich (I capitilise it because it deserves it). It needs bread, thick slices of turkey, stuffing, a sausage wrapped in bacon, a potato if you have any left and then something sweet and lubricating like a good chutney. That is food perfection. So far I’ve had five of these.

The leftover hash comes second on the hierarchy in my opinion: squishing all the uneaten veg together and then frying it until it’s crispy on the outside. What a delight.

This year I made main and dessert from leftovers.

Christmas Risotto (aka Turkey, Stilton and Cranberry Risotto)

There is always always always turkey and stilton in the fridge in the days after Christmas. This is a good thing. The addition of cranberries is for a festive sweetness which perfectly eases through the richness of the cheese and rice.

This serves 2

• Chicken or vegetable stock – 1 pint, maybe a little more
• 1 large white onion, finely chopped
• 1 clove of garlic, finely chopped
• Arborio rice – 150-175g, more if you’re ravishingly hungry
• White wine – a splosh if you have it, it isn’t essential
• Turkey – cooked and chopped/torn into small pieces
• Stilton, or any blue cheese – 100g, or so
• Dried cranberries – a handful, chopped
• Peas – a handful per person
• Butter and olive oil – a knob and a drizzle
• Sage and/or rosemary leaves, finely chopped (no woody stalk)
• Sea salt and black pepper

In a deep pan, sweat the onion and garlic in butter and oil until soft, then add the sage and/or rosemary leaves and stir through for a minute. Add the rice and coat in the sweet buttery-oil juices.

In another pan you will want your stock slowly warming. Add the turkey to the stock. When the rice starts to snap, crackle and pop add the wine. If you are not adding wine then go straight to the stock, adding a ladle-full at a time and being careful to keep the turkey from falling onto the rice (we add that later, you see). Keep adding the stock, bit by bit, as the rice sucks it all up. After 10 minutes add the peas and cranberries. Add more stock until the rice is cooked (it should be soft but still have an ever-so-slight nutty ‘bite’ in the middle).

Add the cheese (and some more butter, if you like) and the turkey from the stock and cover the pan, leaving it to rest for a minute or two, in this time the cheese will melt and ooze its wonderfulness throughout. Adjust the seasoning and serve in a deep bowl with more blue cheese crumbled over the top.

I would serve Innis & Gunn Triple Matured with this, like I did with Christmas dinner, as the creaminess in the dish would work well with the buttery oak in the bottle, while the sweet bites of cranberry would compliment the beer’s sweetness. If you want something different then try Cains Fine Raisin Beer for a strong malty backbone with a kick of sweetness, or maybe a bottle of Old Crafty Hen which is oaky, rich, vinous with dried fruit sweetness and a hoppy, palate-cleansing swipe to finish.

Main course done, on to dessert and…


Christmas Pudding Ice-Cream



There’s always pudding left and there’s always cream in the fridge, plus I always keep a few cans of condensed milk ready for whenever I want to make ice cream. This is a joyfully fun recipe and the perfect way to use up any leftover pudding.

An ice-cream maker is one of the best kitchen appliances there is, it goes from nought-to-frozen in just 30 minutes, and those minutes are spent huddled around the mixing bowl, mesmerised by the unending twirls of joy and the gradual thickening of the cream. As the churn finishes, it takes all the willpower in the world not to plunge a spoon straight in and finish off the whole lot, especially as it has that just-beginning-to-soften texture that is simply irresistible. If you haven’t got an ice-cream machine then go and get one in the sales.

This makes about a litre but can easily be increased with more cream and condensed milk.

• Leftover Christmas pud
• A pint of double cream
• A can of condensed milk
• A splash of brandy (50ml, or so)

This recipe is so easy. Mix the cream and condensed milk, add a slash of brandy and drop in chunks of Christmas Pud and then churn in an ice-cream machine. Done.

Do you want a beer with this?! If you do then you’ll need something big and strong, rich and full of flavour. An Imperial Stout would work, preferably a barrel aged one. Brakspear’s Triple is another possibility or maybe a bottle of Guinness Foreign Extra. Dare I suggest that you’d be better off enjoying the ice-cream and then opening a beer? Some dishes just don’t need a beer to go with them.

And that’s how I dealt with the Christmas Day leftovers this year.

Christmas Beer: The Results

The BrewDog Coffee Imperial Stout was one of the very best beers I’ve had this year. Seriously good. Thick and luscious, rich and strong and big on the roasted coffee bitterness. It was the perfect start to the day, and just so happened to work perfectly with milk chocolate pennies.

As billed, the Bad Pixie came next as was the perfect follow-on from the big stout – light, zingy, refreshing. Next was a bottle of Cantillon Kriek 100% Lambic. Electric red with a sharply sour nose of citrus, lemons, leather, cleaning chemicals and just a welcome whiff of cherry. The flavour was just the same, all big and sharp but tongue-smacking and drinkable – perfect for getting the tastebuds going. Curious Brew’s Brut landed just before the starter and it was fantastic: light and delicate, as quaffable as they come; a real treat of a beer.

The headline act - the star with top billing and the best action scene - was Innis & Gunn’s Triple Matured, and it was the perfect partner to the turkey. I was delighted with how well this pairing went. The buttery richness of the oak, the big fruitiness, the slight sharpness, an earthy, spicy quality all combined stunningly well. The food enhanced the beer; the beer enhanced the food. That’s what a good match-up should do.

I finished the afternoon opening more presents, so I decided to open a little package of my own from the beer cupboard: Fuller’s Brewer’s Reserve. Bottle number 11255. A deep russet brown with thick head. Big buttery nose with boozy oranges and sweet candy. Loads of toffee and bready malt inside, then oak comes and adds a woody sweetness. The whisky warms throughout, surrounded by plenty of fruit and a hint of cherry brandy. There’s hops at the end too, more fruits and more orange. Gorgeous and I think it’s going to get better and better over the years.

There was more in the evening, but to tell you the truth I don’t remember exactly what. I know there was a can (shock! A can?!) of Mild in there and I’m pretty sure I met with my old friend Sam Smith… It was a good day.

Beer for Christmas

If ever there was a day when it’s acceptable to open a beer with breakfast and drink through until bedtime, then it’s Christmas Day. A day of infinite giving, kindness and fun. A day of presents, laughter and too much food. A day to indulge in a lot of great beers.

But what beers?!

This year I’ll be drinking some of the beers that I’ve loved in 2008. I’ll have them spread out over the day, leading me up to dinner and then taking me into the night. I want different types of beers at different times. Something special to start the day, something gluggable and quenching while I cook, something light before I eat to get my taste buds tingling, something rich and dark while I settle down after dinner. And sharing is good – don’t be a beer scrooge because you’ll only regret it in the end. Plus, you’ll be able to drink twice the variety, should you want to.

Last year’s Christmas went like this… Samuel Smith’s Oatmeal Stout for breakfast, Fuller’s Discovery pre-dinner and with the starter, Kwak with the turkey and McEwan’s Champion with the pudding. I can’t remember what saw me through the rest of the day.

This year will go something like this…

To start, and to take the blunt edges off of Christmas Eve’s hangover (it’s inevitable) I’m starting with breakfast. Beer Geek’s Breakfast by Mikkeller, BrewDog’s Riptide or their Coffee Imperial Stout. I’m bypassing the coffee and have a dark, strong beer instead. Plus, beer is food.

Something lighter will need to follow or I’ll be sozzled by dinner time. It’ll be another BrewDog I think. I’ve still got some of their prototype beers around and the Bad Pixie will be perfect. Light, biscuity grain finished with a tang of juniper and lemon – an elegant G&T finish to a beer.

I’ll probably be in the kitchen when I start and finish this and it’ll be followed by another light beer, something to have on the side as I baste the bird or chop the veggies. Maybe a lambic to give me a smack of bittersweetness: there’s nothing like a lambic to limber up your taste buds.

I’ll be approaching the table when the next bottle is cracked open. I’m starting the meal with a glass of Curious Brew’s Brut. A champagne-style beer brewed a short drive from my house in Kent. It’s a gorgeous beer, all creamy and light, and it leads perfectly into the turkey.

The main course is the big choice. The one which I’ve had to think hardest about. It’s a tough one as there’s so much flavour on the plate: meat, crispy potatoes, sweetly-earthy veg, salty pig-stuff, herby stuffing, a rich gravy. The beer has to be strong enough to stand up to it all, but not so strong that it overwhelms. You need dark fruits, but not too dark and bitter, and certainly not chocolatey. Some sharpness is very welcome to ease through the richness of it all. My choice will be Innis & Gunn’s Triple Matured. It’s full of flavour, there’s buttery oak and tangy autumn fruits (perfect partners to turkey), there’s also something vegetal about it and even a hint of spice. It’s a deep copper colour and at 7.7% ABV it stands tall. The mouthfeel is smooth, the finish long and the fruit will cut the richness nicely. I think it’ll be a great pairing. Plus it’s a limited edition beer, so something special for the feast.

Last year I had a beer with the Christmas pudding, but to be honest I was so full from the food that it was all a bit of a struggle. This year I’ll save the next beer for afterwards, and this’ll be a good one. I’ve got a few bottles of Fuller’s Brewer’s Reserve in the cupboard so that’s on the ‘maybe’ list along with a few vintages or an imperial stout. I want something that I can sip, something big and strong and interesting. Something to perfectly finish off my favourite meal of the year.

Then I’ll need to start chilling the beers for the evening… I’ve got plenty lined up, but have no idea what’ll actually get drunk. It’s inevitable that a big BrewDog IPA will be in there, a Chaos Theory or a Hardcore. And I doubt I’ll last the day without at least one American beer. Maybe santa will even bring me some more, to make my choice even wider and more exciting!

I love Christmas.