Steve Koenemann

Joyeux Noël

A very happy holiday to everyone. Hopefully you were on the “good list” and got or will get a wonderful present from someone today. It’s a cold one here in Vermont this morning; only about 6F at my house, but I am sure that there are colder places around. I am listening to the rest of my family waking up on this Christmas morning and coming down stairs to the smell of my wife, Candy, beginning to cook breakfast in the kitchen… the heavenly smell of bacon being predominant, of course, but the coffee is running a close second at the moment.

This year’s day will be just a little different than past years as we will have our grown children (Cindy and Jamie) with us for the entire day. For most of our married lives (coming up on 29 years) we have shared them on Christmas day with their father and his family. For us Christmas is all about family and it was always important to both Candy and I for them to share the day with all of their family that was around and available. This year they shared that time with their father on Christmas Eve, so we will get to spend the whole day together for the first time in many years.

That means of course that my son and l will be sharing some special beers throughout the day. The longer “session” available to me has prompted a longer list of beers than in year’s past. It is certainly the “cold and flu” season and all of us have had “something” to deal with over the last couple of weeks. The current state of Jamie’s health may alter our beer drinking plans for the day… or at least the “sharing” part of that… I feel fine and plan to enjoy some of the beer currently awaiting its fate in the fridge as we speak. I hope that does not sound too selfish on my part. I am hoping that he feels better later, so that he can enjoy the beers that I have planned for the day.

Last year we began what I hope is a tradition that we keep; enjoying one of Sean Lawson’s Finest Liquids beers on Christmas day. Last year we savored two of them… Fayston Maple Imperial Stout (Fayston is a small Vermont town) and Sean’s Maple Tripple. While both were excellent beers, the Maple Tripple, for me, was over the top. Sean won a Bronze Medal at the 2010 World Beer Cup for this beer in the “Specialty” category. Strictly as a “trippel” it has a few weaknesses, but simply as a beer to drink and enjoy it is one of my absolute favorites. Sean uses a variety of maple industry products (Vermont is the largest producer of maple syrup in the US) to produce this beer and for those of us that were raised with maple in our blood, this beer really resonates with this Vermont heritage.

This year I was fortunate enough to score a special, unique and very “Vermontesque” version of the Sean’s Fayston Maple Imperial Stout… this one aged in Maple barrels! Sold only at Montpelier’s indoor winter Farmers Market a couple of weeks ago, the single batch of this “wonder beer” sold out in about a half hour to those of us fortunate to plan to get there early enough and make it through the line before it was gone. I plan to sample a bottle of this brew sometime during the day today. The rest of the bottles of this beer I got will be hidden away (from me) to age an appropriate amount of time before seeing the light of day again. I also was able to get a bottle of his Hopzilla Double IPA; another of Sean’s beers that I have not tried yet.  As only a one-barrel brewery, Sean’s beers are produced in such small quantities that it is hard to easily gain access to the entire variety of what he is producing. Luck plays a large part in obtaining any quantity or large variety of his beers over time. The Hopzilla, a beer of my favorite style, will likely take center stage during “football Sunday” this weekend.

The other beers that I have planned for today are from brewers that I have sampled and enjoyed other beers from previously. I have a bottle of Ommegang Adoration; their classic winter beer, which should fit into the day nicely. I have enjoyed other beers from Brouwerij Huyghe… Delirium Nocturnum, Delirium Tremens and etc… but I have a bottle of Delirium Noël, which I have been saving for nearly a year, that I hope to break into later today. The last beer I have planned is Dubuisson’s Bush de Noël (Scaldis Noel). We’ll plan on treading lightly with this one, if we get to it, due to its 13% ABV potency. This one could definitely/easily prompt a nap or early bedtime if not sipped and savored over some longer period of time.

For those of you looking for other holiday beer suggestions for today (if you already have bought it, obviously, since few stores will be open today) or for later as the holiday season progresses, I suggest that you check out the personal Web site of my fellow HopPress writer Jon Abernathy. His site, called the “The Brew Site” has an excellent Beer Advent Calendar, in which Jon highlights 24 holiday beers for 2010. This topic is an annual one for Jon, so bookmark it for next year!

The sound level upstairs is increasing and I am sure that breakfast is almost ready. I plan to grab another cup of coffee and settle into a day-long revelry of family time, perhaps my favorite pastime. We’ll open some presents, eat some great food and enjoy each other’s company throughout the day. We are generally a pretty “merry” group anyway, but the holiday festivities and fun are sure to make it a(nother) day for us to remember having spent together as a family. I hope that all of you are spending time with someone or a group of people special in your lives and that the day is a happy one for you.

From all of the Koenemann family to each of you… Have A Very Merry Christmas!!

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