REVIEW: Hitachino Nest Commemorative Ale & The Office

Alright, today's Christmas pairing is admittedly, pretty tenuous but we'll get to that in a minute. First of all we've got Kiuchi Brewery's Hitachino Nest Commemorative Ale. My first beer here on the blog from Asia! In the first week of these Christmas pairing posts not only have i had beers from three different breweries, but from three different continents! Pretty cool. I'm not quite sure what to make of this beer, I know it's 8% ABV, and that it's brewed as a "festive ale" with vanilla beans, coriander, orange peel, nutmeg, and cinnamon. Sounds pretty good, right? And to pair with it, A Benihana Christmas from season three of The Office.

REVIEW: The Bruery Autumn Maple

Alright, back to the fall seasonals after a brief respite. It's a bit different though. Instead of being brewed with pumpkins, The Bruery's Autumn Maple is brewed with yams. Throw those yams (17 pounds per barrel!) into the brew kettle along with cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, vanilla, molasses, and maple syrup and then fermented with a Belgian yeast and you've got a recipe to make me sit up and take notice. To the beer!

REVIEW: Dogfish Head Positive Contact

Today's beer is a collaboration, of sorts. It's not a collaboration between brewers, like we've seen so much of on the blog. It's a collaboration between Dogfish Head and Dan the Automator, a member of the hip-hop group Deltron 3030. Sam Calagione gives the full story on how the collaboration came about and how the recipe was formed in the quick sip clip found here. Now, I'm only a very recent convert to hip-hop, only the last couple of years, and can still only get down with the more alternative stuff, but I checked out some Deltron 3030 after drinking this beer. Pretty cool stuff. Here's the song that the beer was named after. I dig it. Anyway, the beer we have today, in true Dogfish Head tradition is brewed with some pretty wild ingredients: Fuji cider, slow-roasted farro, cayenne, and cilantro. Sort of a beer cider hybrid going on here. To the beer!

REVIEW: Mikkeller Mexas Ranger

So far this week I've looked at a stout brewed with Oranges, a Belgian ale brewed with Sea Salt. Neither of those beers have anything on the wild ingredients used in this brew. Mikkeller, who we've looked at before, are no strangers to pushing the boundaries, but Mexas Ranger is most definitely the most daring of their beers that I have had the pleasure to enjoy. Mexas Ranger is brewed with spices, almond milk, cocoa, chilies, black beans, avocado leaves and is then aged in tequila barrels! I couldn't look myself in the mirror if I left that beer on the shelves. I just wish I had some tacos to go along with it! To the beer!