December is a great month to be a beer fan. Heck, it’s a great month to be a fan of all food and drinks. Office parties, holiday gatherings, and seasonal soirees mean there will be a lot of beers imbibed from now until the new year. Not only is it a great time to stand around sipping a napkin-wrapped beer as you gossip with your co-workers about other co-workers, but it’s also a month when a ton of delicious, seasonal brews are released.
This is why we’re so excited to once again list the best beers to track down this month. We picked ten flavorful, seasonally appropriate beers. Some are eagerly sought-after annual favorites and others are newly released bangers. All are well-suited for December drinking. Keep scrolling to see these offerings from the likes of Anchor, Anderson Valley, Rogue, Call to Arms, and Ommegang (among others).
Anchor Christmas Ale
ABV: 7.2%
Average Price: $12 for a six-pack
The Beer:
We dare you to find a Christmas beer more famous than Anchor’s annual offering. First released in 1975, his beloved beer is made with a slightly different recipe (which isn’t available to the public) and is adorned with a different hand-drawn Christmas tree. This year’s winter warmer has bold orange, caramel malt, and holiday spice flavors.
Tasting Notes:
Notes of brown bread, toffee, roasted malts, and wintry spices greet you on the nose. The palate has more roasted malts, chocolate, caramel, dried fruits, and seasonal spices. While spiced, the cinnamon, nutmeg, and other flavors aren’t over-the-top. It’s a very complex, well-balanced beer.
Bottom Line:
Even though the recipe changes slightly, Anchor Christmas Ale is one of those beers that you can guarantee will be complex and flavorful year after year. 2022 is no different.
Call to Arms Only Cans IPA
ABV: 8%
Average Price: Limited Availability
The Beer:
This collaboration with Westbound & Down is an 8% ABV “New Zealand IPA” brewed with Chinook and Centennial hops and dry-hopped wot Nelson, Riwaka, and Citra hops. The result is a surprisingly fruity, flavorful double IPA with a nice hit of floral, earthy hops.
Tasting Notes:
A nose of pineapple, grapefruit, fruit ester, caramel malts, and floral, earthy, herbal hops start this beer off on an impressive note. The palate is filled with bready malts, passion fruit, mango, guava, grapefruit, tangerine, and ripe melon. It’s well-balanced by slightly piney, citrus, and floral hops at the finish.
Bottom Line:
Even with the massive amount of varying hops included in this double IPA, it’s still surprisingly well-balanced, fruity, and easy to drink. It’s fruity, resinous, and delicious.
Rogue Santa’s Private Reserve 2022 Honey Mama’s
ABV: 6.5%
Average Price: $15 for a four-pack of 16-ounce cans
The Beer:
Every year Rogue Ales drops a Santa’s Private Reserve beer and they are all unique and different. This year’s annual release is a collaboration with Honey Mama’s, an Oregon-based producer of honey-sweetened truffle bars. This stout also owes its unique flavor profile to the addition of tahini, tangerine, and chocolate.
Tasting Notes:
The nose is surprisingly rich and robust. There’s a ton of orange peel, caramel, coffee, and chocolate on the nose. Drinking it reveals a roasted nut, chocolate, sweet honey, dried fruit, and roasted malt flavor. This is such a unique and complex stout that you need to drink it a few times to find all the flavors.
Bottom Line:
You might think honey, tahini, and orange peels aren’t necessarily a great combination in a stout, but they all work in perfect unison to create a memorable holiday beer.
RTJ CU4TRO IPA
ABV: 8.5%
Average Price: Limited Availability
The Beer:
You’ve likely heard of the hip-hop duo Run The Jewels. But you probably don’t know they also make collaborative beers with well-known breweries. One of its newest releases is RTJ CU4TRO IPA, a “2x Dry Hopped 2x India Pale Ale” brewed in collaboration with Interboro Spirits and Ales. This new release is brewed with Mosaic Incognito and Simcoe hops and double dry-hopped with Simcoe Cryo and HBC 586.
Tasting Notes:
This hazy, cloudy IPA begins with notes of oats, pineapple, guava, mango, and apricots. The fruity nose makes way for the creamy palate loaded with ripe peaches, caramelized pineapple, apricot, mango, and nice, gentle, dank pine at the finish. There’s little to no bitterness even with all the (hip) hop flavor.
Bottom Line:
You might assume that a beer from Run The Jewels would just be a gimmick, but it definitely isn’t. The folks at Interboro brewed a fruity, dank, flavorful hazy IPA.
New Belgium Accumulation IPA
ABV: 6.5%
Average Price: $12 for a six-pack
The Beer:
If you don’t think about IPAs during the winter months then you’re likely simply not an IPA fan. The Strata, Mosaic, Lotus, and El Dorado hops in the hazy winter IPA give it a complex flavor profile of grapefruit, tangerine, and pine.
Tasting Notes:
The nose starts with aromas of grapefruit, pineapple, tangerine, lemon zest, and herbal, earthy hops. The palate continues this trend with more citrus fruits, tropical fruits, dank pine, and creamy wheat. It’s a fruity, flavorful IPA that will make you forget about the winter weather to come.
Bottom Line:
Fans of winter IPAs eagerly await this popular beer when it’s released annually in mid to late December and for good reason. It’s slightly hazy, complex, and a great beer to drink while you wait for winter to begin (and end).
Tröegs Mad Elf
ABV: 11%
Average Price: $16 for a six-pack
The Beer:
Tröegs Mad Elf is a different kind of holiday beer. Brewed with chocolate malt, Pennsylvania honey, Belgian yeast, and five different tart cherries (Bing, Lambert, Van, Royal Ann, and Montmorency), this popular beer is sought-after year after year.
Tasting Notes:
There’s a ton of cherry aroma on the nose as well as toasted marshmallows, toffee, vanilla, and baking spices. The palate is more of the same with caramel malts starting things off before working into tart and sweet dried cherries, vanilla, cinnamon, nutmeg, and other wintry spices. It’s sweet, spicy, malty, and highly memorable.
Bottom Line:
The Mad Elf on this beer’s label looks very mischievous, but the beer itself is anything but. It’s sweet, tart, spicy, and delicious.
Dogfish Head Crimson Cru
ABV: 7.1%
Average Price: $15 for a six-pack
The Beer:
This worldly beer starts as a Rodenbach Grand Cru. The popular Flemish brown ale is aged in oak barrels before being shipped across the ocean to Delaware where it’s blended with Dogfish Head’s red ale, infused with orange peel, and sumac, and dry-hopped with Hallertau Blan hops.
Tasting Notes:
Complex aromas of sticky toffee, caramel malts, dried cherries, and candied orange peels greet your nostrils before your first sip. The palate is loaded with more dried cherries, caramel malts, orange peels, honey, fruit esters, and rich oak. It’s a slightly tart, highly warming winter treat.
Bottom Line:
If you’re already a fan of Rodenbach Grand Cru, we suggest grabbing a bottle of this collaborative seasonal beer. It’s a nice mix of a European tart Flemish brown ale and an American red ale with extra flavors added to meld everything together.
Anderson Valley Winter Solstice
ABV: 6.9%
Average Price: $13 for a six-pack
The Beer:
Brewed with a malt presence of Pale 2-row, Crystal, Munich, oat flakes, house yeast, and Northern Brewer and Chinook hops, Anderson Valley Winter Solstice is the California-based brewery’s caramel and slightly spicy take on the classic winter warmer.
Tasting Notes:
Raisins, dried cherries, toffee, cinnamon, and toasted malts are prevalent on this beer’s nose. The palate has a nice caramel malt backbone along with toasted malts, grassy hops, dried fruits, and wintry spices. It’s a highly complex, well-balanced beer that doesn’t rely simply on one flavor alone.
Bottom Line:
While this beer has some seasonal spices and holiday sweetness, it’s more of a straight forward rich, malty winter beer than anything else. And that’s a great thing.
Golden Road Champagno
ABV: 6.5%
Average Price: $12 for a four-pack of 16-ounce cans
The Beer:
December ends with New Year’s Eve, arguably the biggest night of the year for sparkling wine and champagne. But, if you don’t enjoy sparkling wine, or you’d just prefer beer, Golden Road has a great option for you. Technically available year-round, there’s no better time of year to imbibe this fizzy, mango-flavored ale.
Tasting Notes:
Caramel malts, apricot, mango, and peach are notable on this beer’s nose. It’s really fruity and fragrant and draws you in for a sip. This wheat beer begins with notes of tart mango, apricot, peaches, citrus peels, and light caramel. It’s a nice mix of effervescent sweetness and tartness.
Bottom Line:
Similar to a New Year’s Eve sparkling wine or a New Year’s Day mimosa, this is a juicy, fruity, slightly tart beer for the rest of the holiday season.
Ommegang Everything Nice
ABV: 9%
Average Price: $18 for a four-pack
The Beer:
This 9% ABV strong blonde ale comes from the folks at Cooperstown, New York’s Brewery Ommegang. It’s brewed with Citra hops, 2-row barley, and caramel malts. The wintry, seasonal flavors come from the addition of cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, cloves, and even white pepper.
Tasting Notes:
A lot is going on with this beer’s nose. There are aromas of cinnamon, nutmeg, brown bread, and caramel malts. The palate is loaded with flavors like cinnamon, cloves, ginger, candied orange peels, toffee, caramel apples, and toasted malts. It’s like drinking a fruit cake but in the best way possible.
Bottom Line:
This is an aptly named beer. This Belgian-style beer starts as a blonde ale and then pairs wintry spices with it a create a warming, complex, winter winner of a beer.