Planning your Christmas beers

I know many people are refusing to entertain that Christmas is just around the corner but if you’re planning to serve some home-brew on Christmas day or New years eve, you might want to re-think your mindset and get those beers brewed.

If you were planning to brew some heavy imperial stouts or any barrel aged beers, you might need to re-think that too, with almost one month away we’ve created a few tips that will help you pick the right beers to brew for the holiday season.  

Style Variety

So you might be a hop head or a die hard sour brewer, what ever beer you enjoy brewing, brew it but you might also need to consider brewing up a beer that might be more accessible to account for some of those newbies to beer.  

We’re not saying you shouldn’t have the beer you have, far from in. In fact, we’re suggesting you might want to brew another beer and have a few other options for people to drink. 

Whilst you can’t ensure your guests are going to enjoy your beer, I generally like to have at least two opposite beers. For example, if I have an IPA, i’ll also make sure I have a stout, porter or brown ale available. This at least will give you two contrasting beer styles that should appeal to others.

Whilst this isn’t a guaranteed success it’s going to set you up in the right direction. 

Abv

I don’t know what your Christmas day or parties are like but it’s worth honestly thinking about the abv of your beers. As we said earlier, you’re probably not going to brew an imperial stout but there’s no reason you can’t brew a double IPA or some beers with similar abv’s. Most Double IPA’s i’m trying at the moment are coming in around 7-8.5%, whilst I would have no problem drinking a couple of these, I would question if these sort of numbers are wise if you’re planning to session.

Get brewing asap

You seriously don’t have long until Christmas day and especially   any of those early parties you’re going to be hosting for your friends and families. If you’re bottling your beer, you must be brewing in the new couple days if you want any chance to serve your own home-brew for any parties this year. If you keg your beer then you have some extra time depending on the style you’re planning to brew but I wouldn’t put it off, get to the home-brew store and get that your beer fermenting as soon as you can. 

Christmas is an amazing time to spend with your loved ones make sure your show them how much you love them with some amazing beer. Have fun and keep brewing!