It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Beer: The Final Three Beers

I finished my beer advent calendar on Christmas Eve.  Overall, I think it is a great idea, but I would have liked to see more Christmas and winter beers.  There were too many IPAs.  It's winter, for Christ's sake.

Beer #22 was Firestone Walker's Luponic Distortion IPA Series No. 11.  As with many of the breweries whose IPAs have been included in the beer advent calendar, I like a lot of Firestone Walker's beers.  Their Velvet Merlin stout is wonderful, and the nitro version is one of my favorites.  Whatever the fuck this beer was, though, was not in my wheelhouse.  To be fair, I don't own a house full of wheels, but regardless, this was super hoppy with pineapple, guava, and lemon.

Name:  Luponic Distortion IPA Series No. 11
Brewery:  Firestone Walker Brewing Company

Location:  Paso Robles

ABV:  5.9%

IBU:  59

Good for drinking if:  You're making the hell out of some Christmas cookies, unaware that in a mere two hours, you will binge watch the Netflix true crime documentary series The Innocent Man.

Rating (out of five stars, by quarter star increments): 3.25

Beer #23 is Boulevard's Tank 7.  Dank, dry, and strong this is one of the standard-bearing American saisons/farmhouse ales.  It does an admirable job of paying homage to Belgian saisons, even if it's not my favorite style of beer.

Name:  Tank 7 Farmhouse Ale
Brewery:  Boulevard Brewing Co.

Location:  Kansas City, MO

ABV:  8.5%

IBU:  38

Good for drinking if:  Your beer just doesn't taste enough like wet socks.

Rating (out of five stars, by quarter star increments): 3.75

Beer #24 -- the final one in the advent calendar -- was a special one.  It was brewed by Chicago's Dovetail, which specializes in European-style beers.  This beer -- the appropriately titled 12.24.16 -- was available only in this advent calendar.  Per the little card on the bottle, it came about as a result of a unseasonably warm Christmas Eve in 2016, which resulted in some "spontaneous" fermentation of some out of season beer.  Dovetail added some Belgian malts to raw wheat and Pilsner malt, and then let it ferment for two years.  It's a "lambic-style beer," which means that it's tart and sour.  It was okay.  I'm not typically a fan of lambics, but this wasn't terrible.  Apparently, the bottles varied in flavor because a friend of mine had one earlier in the night, and it was described as "vomit" and "acid."  My wife had a sip of that and then a sip of mine later on in the evening and said that mine tasted much different and much better.

Name:  12.24.16
Brewery:  Dovetail Brewery

Location:  Chicago, IL

ABV:  6.5%

IBU:  N/A

Good for drinking if:  You're done wrapping presents and assembling toys, and you just want to sit down and drink a beer that tastes like fermented fruit.

Rating (out of five stars, by quarter star increments): 3.5