It's The Most Wonderful Time of the Beer

You may not know this about me, but I love winter beers.  In fact, I'd venture to say that winter is my favorite beer season.  Last year, I succeeded in my quest to have at least one beer each day in the month of December, and I plan to do the same thing again this December.  I've already been to liquor stores in three different states to help build up my beer collection for the winter.  Because Jester still lets me go to liquor stores and grocery stores by myself, by my estimate, I currently have about 500 bottles or cans of beer in, or buried around, my house, and I'd guess that at least 100 of those are seasonal winter beers.  It's gonna be a bloody December.

Rather than give you a list of my favorite winter beers, like I did last year and in 2010, I am going to do you one better (at least I think it's better).  I am going to let you sit shotgun on my month-long joyride through seasonal beers.  When I try each beer, I will post about it, so that you can decide if you want to go out and purchase it for yourself.  After all, winter beers are only around for a limited time, so you don't want to waste your time and money on something that sucks, when you could be ordering/buying something that you will love.  I'm not a beer snob (or at least, I don't think I am), so in addition to the smaller craft brewery and international selections, I'll be including winter beers from larger breweries as well.

Fair warning:  I am not a cicerone.  I just like to drink beer.  So, if you want some detailed explanation about the nose and mouthfeel of a particular beer, go to Beer Advocate.  I, on the other hand, will be giving you some basic factual information about the beer, maybe some useless information about the brewery, whatever I can tell you about how the beer tastes, and a rating on a 5-star scale.  Keep in mind that I generally like darker beers and generally hate hoppy beers, so if something says "hoppy" or "IPA" on it, I'm probably not going to have it in my house or in my belly.

"GMYH, you are a most benevolent blogger.  What, pray tell, will you call this whimsical journey?"  Thanks, fair reader.  You're weird, but I'm glad you asked.  I have decided to call it It's The Most Wonderful Time of the Beer because it is a holiday-based pun that also reflects my sincere belief that winter is the most wonderful beer season.  I could have gone with something shorter -- like Decembeer or Happy Ale-a-Days (see what I did there?) -- but I'm not one for taking the easy way out, especially when it comes to puns.

I may not post every day, but I will try to catch up, so if I don't post one day, I'll still post about the beer I consumed that day at a later date.  The first beer review will follow shortly.