5 gallons, OG 1.070

Steep 1# Caramunich®II, 0.5# Carapils®, 2 oz roasted barley
Add 7# light DME to steeping liquor

Bittering hops: 9 AAU Perle hops (35 IBU)
Aroma hops: Cascade, 0.5 to 1.0 oz 10 minutes before knockout

Add 1# orange blossom honey, 1 oz fresh grated ginger, 1 tablespoon fresh grated cinnamon with the aroma hops

Ferment with Wyeast 1056 or White Labs WLP001

For all-grain, replace DME with up to 11# American 2-row malt and mash at 152º F.

Olde Mistletoe Winter Warmer (all-grain)

5 gallons, OG 1.065

11# English pale ale malt
1# caramel 60 malt
0.5# special B malt
0.5# chocolate malt
2 oz roasted barley

Mash at 153º F

Bitter hops: 7 AAU Perle or Northern Brewer (28 IBU)
Aroma hops: optional, but 0.5 oz or less Golding, Fuggle, or Willamette 5 minutes before knockout

Ferment with English ale yeast, such as Wyeast 1028 or White Labs WLP002

Belgian Noël

5 gallons, OG 1.080

8# pilsner or American 2-row malt
3# Munich or Briess Bonlander malt
1# Caramunich®III
0.5# special B malt
0.25# chocolate malt

Mash at 152º F

Dissolve 1.5# turbinado sugar in the wort before boiling

Bittering hops: 8 AAU Perle or Kent Goldings (32 IBU)
Flavor hops/spices: Add 1 oz Saaz hops, 3 star anise, and 1 tablespoon fresh ground nutmeg 10 minutes before knockout.

Ferment with Wyeast 1762 or1214, or White Labs WLP530 or WLP540

Extract brewers: replace base malts with 8# pale, Munich and amber DME as desired, and steep caramunich, special B and chocolate malts as usual.

There are plenty of styles that are a perfect match for cooler weather, doppelbock, wee heavy, Baltic porter, barley wine, imperial stout, old ale and Belgian dubbel among them. Most of those can be purchased year round, and wouldn’t really be considered seasonal. On the other hand, holiday brews are a different animal altogether, giving the brewer an opportunity to experiment, put a twist on a classic style or create a unique brew altogether. This attitude captures perfectly the essence of homebrewing, and in many ways, so do holiday ales.

Holiday ales can be placed into one of two camps: unspiced and spiced. The former often play on a preference for sweetish, malty and fuller beers, a “winter warmer” approach. Spiced brews are based on familiar styles as often as not. The possibilities for homebrewers are many, and they draw upon any national tradition. Both winter warmers and spiced brews will benefit from at least a couple of months of conditioning and aging, as they are stronger than normal brews. This will also give the unusual combinations of flavors time to marry and mellow, so early fall is when you need to get busy.

Winter Warmers

Commercial versions are usually heralded as holiday, winter, Christmas, Noël or some other variation on the season, and generally share a personality reliant on malt flavors and reserved hop character. To avoid alcohol and hop bombs, 6 to 8 percent ABV and hop rates in the 30s will provide balance and more than enough room to play around.

If base malts are the backbone of a beer recipe, then character malts are the flair and nuance, and winter warmers are a great showcase for them. They range in color from amber to deep brown, the malty flavors from soft, honey sweetness to deep, rich caramel, to chocolate and raisin. The key is to settle on the type of winter warmer you want and choose the appropriate character malt.

If you can resist the urge to make a dark beer, use Samuel Smith’s Winter Welcome as a template for a rich and creamy winter warmer that offers soft fruit, firm malt and caramel. A simple recipe of English pale ale malt, extract, or combination of the two, and a pound of medium crystal (60 L) or Caramunich® III malt will suffice. Tradition says to use English crystal, but Caramunich® will add a bit of malty depth to the recipe. Aim for an OG of 1.060 to 1.070, hop lightly at 30 to 35 IBU with East Kent Goldings, and ferment with an estery English ale yeast. It will compliment anything that holiday fare and festivity can dish up.

More common winter warmers are dark, and could best be described as in the camp of strong brown or old ale. These offer up the most complexity and are a study in malt nuance for the homebrewer. Fiddle with blends of crystal (sweetness, toffee), Munich, Caramunich® (toasted sweet maltiness, bready), biscuit (bready), cara-aroma, aromatic, melanoidin (intensely malty), special B (burnt sugar, raisin, molasses, figs), chocolate (nutty, cocoa, coffee) and black patent (roasty, espresso) for up to 20 percent of the grist. Munich malt as part of the base is also an excellent choice, as is a small measure of wheat or oats for mouthfeel and head retention. These brews pair nicely with roasted meats, spicy desserts and a crackling fire.

Belgian brewers also offer Christmas, or Noël ales, usually dark, and roughly in the dubbel or strong dark mold. Sweet, fruity and spicy, they are dessert in a chalice. Abbey yeast is notorious for throwing off esters, but also hints of cinnamon, anise, nutmeg and clove, making Belgian dubbel-inspired Christmas ale a prudent choice. The yeasty byproducts marry well with dark malts like aromatic, chocolate and special B, but also the toasted grain goodness of Munich malt.

Belgians have absolutely no problem using sugar in their recipes (and frankly, neither should anyone), so this would be a chance to add a raw sugar like turbinado, muscovado, piloncillo, jaggery or varietal honey. Ethnic and natural groceries sell some of these unusual unrefined sugars. They are quite complex in their own right, and beg for a home in strong dark Belgian ale.

For lighter-colored Noël brews, use light and medium crystal malt, as well as Munich for character. When selecting yeast, look carefully at the specs and pick one that suits you, since they are as different from each other as any other brewing ingredient, and may not be comfortable fermenting in the cooler temperatures that fall will bring. Try tweaking your favorite saison recipe into a winter specialty.

The problem is, a six-pack with a bow on top doesn’t exactly say “Have a Classy Holiday.” The bottles may contain award-winning beer, but at a glance, all too often a holiday gift first delights the eyes, then warms the heart.

The whisky lads and lasses have been especially active in this realm for years. They’ve known that a bottle of fine whisky is a fine gift, but a bottle in a box with an elegant glass is much more festive. But the beer boys and girls? Well, not much has been released in past years for the present-giver. Oh, sure, there have been many special beers brewed in a special style with a holiday or winter name, but gift packs that included the beer plus a few assorted goodies were lacking.

That’s changing, and changing for the better for beer lovers. Craft brewers and some of the beer importers now offer special holiday packaging and gift sets.

Gift packs offer consumers two benefits,” said George Saxon of Phoenix Imports (Corsendonk and other beers) “the first being an easy and relatively inexpensive way to say Merry Christmas (or Happy Birthday, etc.) to relatives, friends and business associates with, in most cases, a value added package of specialty beer and glassware or other useful item. Second, if the gift giver is beer savvy, it’s a very tasty way to say ‘I think enough about you to give you a very special beer.’”

Corsendonk, a big flavorful abbey ale from Belgium, is one of Saxon’s imports, and each year he brings to the U.S. several gift packs. There is the Corsendonk Geschenkdoos Gift Pack, which includes one 750-ml bottle of both Corsendonk Pater and Agnus and two tulip glasses, and also the Corsendonk Degustation Gift Pack, with one 33-cl bottle of both Corsendonk Abbey Brown and Abbey Pale Ale and one tulip glass. A Christmas theme is incorporated into the Corsendonk Christmas Ale Gift Pack (six 25-cl bottles and one goblet) and the Corsendonk Christmas Ale Gift Tin (one 750-ml bottle and one goblet. Gift Tins are also available for Corsendonk Abbey Brown and Abbey Pale Ale.

Sometimes a gift box of beers changes minds.

The best story I’ve heard,” said Patrick Casey of Legends Limited, who sells the Historic Ales from Scotland Gift Pack from Heather Ale Ltd, “is from the guy who showed up at a high class dinner party and brought the required nice bottle of wine. He also brought an Historic Ale Gift Pack (11.2-oz bottles each of Alba, Eblulum, Fraoch Heather Ale and Grozet). When the hostess saw the beer, her nose went in the air. However, after trying them she asked him upon leaving. ‘Where did you buy those wonderful beers?’”

Even the major brewers are getting into this. Anheuser-Busch InBev offers the Best of Belgium From Anheuser-Busch InBev. There are eighteen 12-oz bottles in this gift box, three each of Stella Artois, Leffe Blonde and Hoegaarden.

“I think the gift packages are great sampling tools,” said Greg Zannella of Northeast Distributing in Connecticut. “Some work better than others. Most consumers don’t have access to special glassware for brands like Sam Smith, Lindemans, Chimay and others. The gift package allows the consumer to create the ‘beer bar’ experience at home, from the bottle to the glass.”

The Samuel Smith Selection Box includes one 550-ml bottle each of Samuel Smith Oatmeal Stout, Nut Brown Ale and Pale Ale, plus a Samuel Smith “Victorian pint” glass and two Rose of Yorkshire coasters in a die-cut box. The Lindemans Gift Box contains one 355-ml bottle each of Lindemans Framboise and Pomme plus a stemmed glass. And the Chimay Sampler Pack has three 11.2-oz bottles, one each of Chimay Red Cap, Chimay Triple and Chimay Blue Cap, plus a goblet.

Beer gift packages with glassware are an incentive,” said Joe Santos of Julio’s Liquors in Westborough, Mass., “and there seem to be more of them from the imported beers than craft beers.”

One German beer gift pack comes from the famous Weihenstephan Brewery in Freising. The Weihenstephan Gift Box includes 500-ml bottles of Weihenstephaner Hefeweizen, Original, Kristall, Dunkel, Vitus (or Korbinian) plus one hefeweizen glass.

Holiday beers follow no set rule or pattern. They may be either top-fermenting ales or bottom-fermenting lagers. They may be normal in alcoholic strength, although the norm is for holiday beers to be audacious versions of the brewery’s flagship product. Such beers incorporate mountains of malt, which (of course) results in a comparably more alcoholic and fuller-bodied beer. Increased amounts of malt also create holiday beers that are on the sweet side, and many brewers of holiday beers carry the theme of oversized beers over into producing brews that are deeper in color and richer in aroma than their workaday companions. Holiday beers are the perfect item to warm one’s soul while sitting before a hot, toasty fire on a cold winter’s night. They are the host’s special gift to friends and guests in keeping with the magnanimity of the holiday season.

So, in that spirit, I present a brewer’s dozen, minus the accompanying song. Because of space limitations, these brewing instructions are somewhat sketchy. But if you’ve brewed a few batches already, you’ll be able to fill in the gaps quite nicely.

1. Caramel Quadrupel. Gravity: 1100; color: deep reddish brown.

A caramelized sugar and malt mixture imparts a lingering toffee-like quality. Mix a pound each of light malt extract and white sugar in a heavy saucepan. Heat until the mixture melts; stir only enough to mix together and continue heating until it starts to darken. Use your judgment about when to stop. Once it starts to brown, things happen quickly, but it can get fairly dark before it will make the beer taste burnt. When done, remove from the stove and cool by lowering the pan into a larger pan of water. Once cooled, add brewing water and reheat to dissolve the caramel, then add to your brew in progress.

2. Pumpkin Barley Wine. Gravity: 1095; color: deep orange-amber.

This uses freshly roasted pumpkin to add flavor. Split a 5- to 7-pound pumpkin horizontally, discard seeds, place cut side down, and roast in the oven until soft and somewhat caramelized. Brew a barley wine recipe, but add to the mash the roast pumpkin, mashed and skin removed. If you want to do an extract version, do a mini-mash of pilsner malt with an amount equal to the pumpkin. Mash as normal and complete the brew as any other barley wine. Dose your secondary with a tiny amount of pumpkin pie spice, 1/8 to 1/4 teaspoon. Ferment with ale yeast, and allow plenty of time for aging. Hopping can be high or moderate. Let the pumpkin shine by avoiding large amounts of high-alpha hops.

3. Saffron Tripel. Gravity: 1090; color: orange-gold.

Pick your favorite Belgian tripel recipe as a start. If there’s no sugar in it, substitute 20 percent of the base malt for some unrefined sugar, such as turbinado or piloncillo. Jaggery (Indian palm sugar) is lovely. Add the zest of one orange at the end of the boil, along with a pinch of crushed grains of paradise or black pepper. Ferment with Belgian ale yeast, and add 1/2 teaspoon saffron threads after transferring to the secondary.

4. Cocoa Export Porter. Gravity: 1085; Color: deep reddish brown.

My version of this brew is called “Pudgy McBuck’s Celebrated Cocoa Porter.” It’s a rich and creamy strong porter, enriched by the addition of cocoa. A mix of 2/3 pale ale malt (mild ale is better if you can get it); 1/3 biscuit or amber (roast it yourself–bake pale malt for 25 minutes at 350 degrees F); plus 4 ounces of black patent. Add 4 ounces of cocoa–look for the lowest fat content–1/2 hour before the end of the boil. Hop to about 40 IBUs; an ounce of Northern Brewers for an hour ought to do. Ferment with your favorite ale yeast.

5. Juniper Rye Bock. Gravity: 1080; color: deep reddish amber.

This beer is a hybrid between the rustic Finnish sahti and classic German brews. Start with a bock recipe with half or more Munich malt. Substitute 2 pounds of crushed rye, cooked like oatmeal and added to the mash, for 2 pounds of the malt. Add 1/4 pound of crushed juniper berries to the mash. The rye will make the mash quite sticky; add a pound of rice hulls before sparging. Use 2 ounces of juniper at the start of the boil and another 2 ounces at the end. Lager yeast and cool temperatures would give the smoothest flavor, but ale yeast yields a lovely beer.

6. Fruitcake Old Ale. Gravity: 1075; color: medium brown.

Friends of mine preserved their chocolate wedding cake by brewing it into an Imperial stout. While I’m not recommending that you do this, it is possible. However leaden the cake, the dried fruits in this “delicacy” can be delicious in beer. Brew an old ale, not too hoppy, and ferment through the primary. Assemble 3 pounds of dried fruit: raisins, apricots, cherries, blueberries–whatever–plus the zest of two of oranges and two whole cloves. Pour boiling water over the fruit mixture to rehydrate; allow to stand for an hour to cool and plump, then mix with the beer, which has been racked into a vessel with some headspace. Also add 1 teaspoon of vanilla. Allow to sit for a month, rack, allow to clear, then package.

7. Dark White Beer. Gravity: 1070; color: medium brown.

Inspired by Pierre Celis’s creation, Verboden Vrucht, this is part white beer, part dubbel and part weizenbock. Use 60 percent barley malt, 40 percent wheat malt. Color comes from a mix of Munich malt (half the barley malt) and a pound of dark crystal, plus an ounce or so of black malt. Hopping can be light, as is traditional, or a little heavier, but keep the aroma hops subdued. I like Northern Brewer hops for their chocolatey bitterness. Add half an ounce of crushed coriander and the zest of an orange at the end of the boil. For more spice zip, make an infusion in vodka of the same spices, strain and add to the beer before carbonating. Ferment with your favorite Belgian ale yeast.

8. Honey Ginger IPA. Gravity: 1065; color: pale amber.

Ginger was a popular ingredient in British beers prior to 1850, and here we’re pairing it with a dab of honey. Start with an IPA, and brew and ferment as normal. Once transferred to the secondary, add 2 pounds of honey, plus 2 ounces of candied ginger, chopped coarsely. This is a higher quality ginger than the stuff in the produce section, at once less pungent and less earthy. I would use British East Kent Goldings exclusively.

9. Crabapple Lambicky Ale. Gravity: 1050; color: pale pink.

Crabapples add not only a festive touch, but tannins and acidity as well, which makes it easier to get that tart, champagne-like character without extended aging. Brew a simple pale wheat recipe. If mashing, go low (145 degrees) and long (2 hours). Ferment with ale yeast, Belgian or otherwise. Obtain 3 to 4 pounds of crabapples (cranberries work also), wash well, then freeze. Thaw and add to the beer when it is transferred to the secondary, along with a package of Wyeast mixed lambic culture. Allow to age on the fruit for two months, then rack, allow to clear, then bottle. Lambic character will continue to increase with time.

10. Gingerbread Ale. Gravity: 1055; color: pale brown.

Liquid cake! One of our Chicago Beer Society homebrewers hit me with this one a few years ago, and the flavor was quite striking. The gingerbread flavor depends on a specific balance of spices used in the common dessert. Use 1 teaspoon cinnamon, 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger, 1/4 teaspoon allspice, 1/4 teaspoon cloves. Just add them at the end of the boil. The base brew should be a soft brown ale, lightly hopped, with no pronounced hop aroma.

11. Spiced Bourbon Stout. Gravity: 1050; color: India ink.

Take your favorite stout recipe and dose it with a vodka infusion. Into 6 ounces of vodka and 2 ounces of bourbon (more if you wish), add 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract, 1/4 teaspoon allspice, 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon, 2 tablespoons crushed coriander, 1 whole star anise (or 1/4 teaspoon ground), 1/4 cup crushed juniper and a pinch of black pepper. When beer is ready to package, pull off some 1-ounce samples. Use a pipette or syringe to dose the samples with the strained infusion, increasing until you find the right dose. Then scale up and add an appropriate amount, plus a little extra to account for aging.

12. Abbey Weizen. Gravity: 1045; color: hazy deep gold.

This one’s easy. Take a classic Bavarian weizen recipe and ferment it with a Belgian abbey yeast. For a little more zip, add a little citrus peel–try a tangelo for a fairly close approximation of the Seville/Curaçao orange. A tablespoon each of coriander and chamomile added at the end of the boil provides even more depth.