BetterBeerBlog

On this edition of Hopinions, Mario and I get a little nostalgic about the 2009 Holiday Season. Okay, to be perfectly truthful, I get all nostalgic about the 2009 Holiday Season while Mario has no choice but to come along for the ride as it’s my turn to pick and host the topic.

With Thanksgiving right behind us and Christmas right around the corner, Mario and I write about what we’re thankful for and what we’d like to see under the Christmas tree this year. Please feel free to add your own “thanks” or “Christmas wishes” in the comments section below.

From: Peter at BetterBeerBlog

With Thanksgiving over and Christmas on the way, I wanted to put a bit of a holiday spin on this edition of Hopinions. I had originally wanted to write about what beers I would be having for Thanksgiving but we didn’t really do beer for Thanksgiving outside of the Thanksgiving Beer Depletion Party we had to kick off the weekend.

To start off, I wanted to list what I am thankful for this year. I am thankful for all the craft brewers of the world. Seriously. Without them, this blog wouldn’t exist and just about everything else I’m thankful for wouldn’t be around. I’ve had a lot of good, local craft beers as well as craft beers from Canada, England, Italy and Belgium (umm… Belgium). I’m racking my brain trying to think up names to drop but there’s been so many good beers it’s hard to single them out. I’d be easier to just name the bad beers as but I won’t because this is supposed to be a positive post.

Strange as it sounds, I am thankful for Twitter and Facebook. In our beer travels to different festivals and events, social media outlets like Twitter and Facebook have allowed us to keep in touch with the many friends we’ve made along the way and strengthen some of the current friendships we do have. Craft beer is the reason Sammy and I go places but the people we’ve met are the reason we keep coming back. The craft beer community has been nothing short of warm, welcoming and giving and I’m glad to be able to consider myself a party of this community.

Lastly, I am the most thankful for my wife, Sammy. It is through her understanding, patience and participation that we are able to experience all that we’ve been able to this year. While I’m sure she wouldn’t have minded if I attended all these beer events, festivals, conferences and dinners by myself, each experience was made that much better with her presence. She is more experienced and sophisticated about beer than most people give her credit for upon first glance. Sammy is much more than my designated driver (as sometimes I fulfill that role), she is my best friend and drinking buddy.

Once you’ve finished wiping the vomit from your mouth (I didn’t know I was going to be such a sap), I’d like to know what you are thankful for. Are you thankful for craft beer in general or do you have specific breweries/beers you’d like to spotlight? Are you thankful for certain events you were able to attend? How about some of the people “behind the scenes” in the craft beer world? Lastly, how thankful are you for all the beer samples you’ve received this year?

From: Mario at Brewed For Thought

Well, I think we should all be thankful for the ladies in our lives, but you’re a little late on that as someone already started the beer blogger/significant other lovefest a few weeks ago. That said, I’m with you.

So what am I thankful for?

I’m thankful for Jolly Pumpkin La Roja and a piece of Toblerone at a friend’s house in San Francisco.

I’m thankful for pork belly and scallops.

I’m thankful for the opportunity to try beers that are way out of my price range.

I’m thankful for whimsical ideas that become a big success. Sometimes, I even do it right twice.

I’m thankful for new opportunities, even if they don’t always work out as planned.

I’m thankful for the friends I’ve made writing about beer.

I’m thankful that people actually read what I write.

And yes, I’m thankful for free beer.

Now that we’re thankful for our bounty, the season of giving is upon us. How does a humble blogger then translate this festive season into something beer-related? What’s under your Christmas tree or what are you asking Santa for? Everyone likes the gift of beer, any suggestions?

From: Peter at BetterBeerBlog

Currently we don’t have our Christmas tree up yet but even when we do, there’ll sadly be no beer-related present underneath… unless Sammy decides to surprise me this year. The lack of gift wrapped beer notwithstanding, I do have stars in my eyes for certain beers and beer related equipment. Whether or not Santa Claus has deemed me “nice” enough to warrant such gifts is due much more to the state of my finances as opposed to the state of my morality or whether or not I still believe in Santa Claus.

After having tasted a Samuel Adams Utopia for the first time this year, I want one. Two really but I’ll be happy with just one. What an incredible beer. This is definitely one of those “milestone” beers you crack open for truly special occasions: getting married, the birth of your child, turning 50, the day you stop paying alimony and child support.

Not to be outdone by Samuel Adams, a bottle of Tactical Nuclear Penguin from boys of Brew Dog would be a great Christmas gift as well. Weighing in at a hefty 32% ABV, Tactical Nuclear Penguin has just dethroned Utopia as the new king of high alcohol beer. At $50 a bottle, this beer seems to be a bargain when compared to the nearly $200 some bottles of Utopia can sell for.

Tactical Nuclear Penguin from BrewDog on Vimeo.

Having just been to The Bruery in Orange County, I would love a “first dibs” opportunity to purchase each of their holiday beers. Cleverly named after each day of Christmas, it will be an exercise of extreme patience to not open up each bottle until the collection is complete. With A Partrige in a Pear Tree being their initial release, Two Turtle Doves, predictably, is this years new holiday beer. Thankfully I have one bottle of each already and with The Bruery quickly expanding their distribution, getting a complete set of their holiday ales is looking better by the day.

To sit here and name all the beers I would love for Christmas can quickly become an exercise in masturbatory beer geekery. My pupils would dialate, my heart rate would increase, my mouth would begin to water and at the very end, I’m no better satisfied than when I started. I might as well as go to my local, well-stocked BevMo and start slipping dollar bills into the wire cage of a DeuS. Makin’ it rain!

On the homebrew front, I would love an efficient wort chiller. As much as I love my homemade wort chiller, a newer, more efficient model would be awesome. I’ve received some outstanding feedback on counter-flow chillers but haven’t committed yet. Vintage tap handles for the kegerator would be great as well.

Going for broke, I would love private beer & food dinner for Sammy, myself and a handful of friends. Can you imagine having Beer Chef Bruce Paton or Homebrew Chef Sean Paxton designing and cooking up a beer & food dinner just for you? Wrecked with guilt, I’d insist I help out with the preparations (as long as I’m given a task within my culinary skill level… like boiling water). Upping the ante, what if it was a beer dinner designed by Thomas Keller at French Laundry. Talk about makin’ it rain!

What about you? What beers are on your Christmas list? What beer gadgets get your motor running? What about a beer vacation?

From: Mario at Brewed For Thought

Good news, if a Bruce Patton home-cooked meal is what you want, you can win one at Winterfest. Winterfest is put on by our friends at Beer by BART. They have all kinds of great things to auction off and it all happens on Sunday the 6th.

You have compiled quite a list of beers there and I’d be happy with any of those. Personally, my gift will hopefully come from myself.

Sitting in my backyard for the last few months is my beer fridge. It was a reclamation project from a neighbor. It’s been cleaned out, sanded down, but now I just have two remaining jobs. The first is to paint it white so the wife allows it in the house. The second is figuring out the wiring, as the diagram is half missing. This may be seen as optional as given where I plan on keeping the fridge. Even without providing the juice to the fridge, I should be able to keep beer in a suitable environment.

Whatever it is that does (or doesn’t) end up under your tree, I hope you have a Happy Holidays. 2009 has been a good year for beer and we can only hope 2010 is even better. I know, it’s a bit premature for this kind of talk, but after this, we’re running out of time for 2009.

This entry was posted on Friday, December 4th, 2009 at 1:11 am and is filed under Hopinions. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.