With the fall season quickly dipping into winter and a blessful end to 2020 coming, the New School’s trove of contributors in Portland, Bend and Seattle have been imbibing stronger winter seasonals. Each year you have the return of classics like Celebration, Christmas Ale, and Jubel but also the raft of new releases that you may have not yet tried, or that we just find particularly good this year. Now is the time to stock up, as Oregon and Washington experience the winter ‘Freeze’ on indoor dining and drinking.

Imaginary Friends Winter IPA

Everybody’s Brewing - White Salmon, WA

By Ezra Johnson-Greenough

Smelling like marmalade, pine needles and spearmint, pouring with a classic gorgeous meadowfoam honey-like color, and snowy white lacing, Imaginary Friends is as comforting as a freshly baked sugar cookie. Maybe it’s just my imagination, or maybe the brew team was just able to pull some magical spicy flavors out their big red bags without actually using non hops or malt spices.

“We used a good amount of bittering hops to make sure the sweetness of the Crystal malt didn't take over too much. Adam and Dave do not like malty sweet IPAs!” says Everybody’s Brewing’s Pat Velten referring to the brewers.

Imaginary Friends is just as billed, a Winter IPA with enough kick in it’s 7.2% ABV to give you a warm glowing buzz but not knock you on the floor and leave you dreaming of Mr. Snuffleupagus.

Everglow Winter IPA

Hellbent Brewing - Seattle, WA

By Ben Keene

With the mercury starting to dip and a harvest festival at the end of the month, November is a good time to be a beer drinker. Often this is the point in the year when we reach for something a little stronger, a bit more malt-forward, or maybe even barrel-aged. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a big fan of barleywines, Belgian quads, and winter warmers, but once in a while you need to reset your palate with something bright and bitter. Hellbent Brewing’s Everglow Winter IPA does just that. Like a bonfire lighting up the dark night sky, this spruce tip ale glows in the glass once it’s poured from a can. And like a walk in the winter woods it’s big on evergreen aromas and pungent pine. Resinous and dry with a lemony linger, it’s a beer to grab when you can’t bring yourself to order another bourbon-soaked bruiser. Plus, at a time when nearly every IPA seems to be dripping with the summery flavors of mango, pineapple, and coconut, it’s refreshing to drink something where Simcoe and Chinook hops shine alongside the spruce tips. To me, Everglow tastes like the perfect IPA for the long, cold season ahead.

Tough Love

Crux Fermentation Project - Bend, OR

By Heidi Howard

Tough Love is a barrel-aged imperial stout. It is released annually and is part of Crux Fermentation Project’s Banished series. This year’s Tough Love was “banished” to Buffalo Trace Kentucky bourbon barrels and comes in at a whopping 14% ABV. Its release date is Thursday, November 12 th . This beer has notes of oak, black strap molasses and bourbon. It has a hot, bourbon finish and is rich and delightful. It is decadent and a real treat. Tough Love is one of my favorite family traditions. Every year since its first release in 2012, I’ve bought two bottles; one to drink, and one to cellar. Each Thanksgiving and Christmas I pull a vintage bottle from my cellar (which is honestly just the bottom shelf of my pantry) and share it with family and friends. This Thanksgiving I will be sharing last year’s release of Tough Love, but it’s even better after two years of aging. Tough Love pairs nicely with Bourbon Pumpkin Pie, and I stumbled across Bonta’s Pumpkin Spice gelato which is also a really great pairing.

Figgy Pudding

Block 15 Brewing - Corvallis, OR

By Don Sch

A holiday ale can be a reminder of classic seasonal comfort foods, and Block 15 Brewing certainly does that with its seasonal Figgy Pudding holiday ale. The base beer is an English-style old ale, brewed with black-strap molasses and English malts, then spiced with Ceylon cinnamon, nutmeg, and allspice, and aged in brandy barrels. It's heady with aromas of its namesake dessert, an old-time English dessert comprising breadcrumbs, eggs, brown sugar, suet, raisins, currants, candied orange peel, nutmeg, cloves, allspice, and alcohol. Wait, no figs? Figs are optional at best, but some recipes include plums. Lifting a glass of Figgy Pudding immediately conveys these spice and barrel aromas to the nose, and the first sip is warming with gentle spices. It brings to mind an era of old-fashioned Victorian holiday celebrations, with its fruity character and aromatic character. It pours a fine chestnut reddish-brown in the glass to add visual appeal, slightly viscous, a touch boozy, and just about perfect for an after-dinner drink.

Super Jubel 2020

Deschutes Brewery - Bend/Portland, OR

By “El Gordo”

While Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale is my holiday ride or die beer, I always buy more than my fair share of Jubelale to get me through the winter; it’s about my platonic ideal of a nice, dark winter ale. Super Jubel comes around once a decade as an imperial cousin of the old standby, and this year’s version does not disappoint. Mellower than a barleywine and certainly not roasty enough to venture into stout territory, Super Jubel is kind of in a class of its own. Pairs nicely with medjool dates or an oatmeal raisin cookie. This is definitely a nightcap type of beer, something that will end the evening on a rich and delicious high note.

Tasting notes:

Pours a pretty color that’s somewhere at the intersection of golden brown and garnet red, with a small creamy head that quickly dissipates. Sweet aroma of stone fruit and brown sugar with a hint of booze. Rich, sweet flavor of dark caramel, raisins, dates, and a touch of prune, balanced by a very slight herbal bitterness from the hops. Mouthfeel is full-bodied and somewhat thick, with a nice warming finish that lets you know this is a 10% beer.

Pecan Pie Dessert Beer

Stormbreaker Brewing - Portland, OR

By Neil Ferguson

Though they have been chugging steadily along for a handful of years now and picking up the occasional award along the way, Stormbreaker has only recently become one of my favorite breweries in Portland. From IPAs to stouts and even a surprisingly stellar fresh hopped red ale, the brewery has been on a winning streak with pretty much every style, and they also aren't afraid to think outside the box. Take their seasonally appropriate Bourbon Pecan Pie beer for example. You hear the term "dessert beer" these days and immediately think of pastry stouts, but this isn't that. With a deep caramel color, this strong brown ale showcases a nutty bourbon flavor that comes from the brewery toasting 20lbs of pecans before soaking them in bourbon for a couple of weeks, recirculating the base beer with said pecans and vanilla beans for five days, and then adding a pecan simple syrup. The last part was inspired by Stormbreaker co-owner and brewer Rob Lutz's years "perfecting the smoke signals cocktail from Laurelhurst Market." The resulting beer is, perhaps surprisingly, not too sweet. The vanilla as well as the bourbon are present but don't overwhelm the flavor of the pecans. All of the adjuncts come together to give this beer a toasty, spicy finish that makes it a proper winter sipper coming in at 7%. Classic nut brown ales come to mind with this style, but the Stormbreaker team has once again put an unexpected twist on tradition. Pairing it with a slice of pecan pie sounds like a perfect way to spend a cold night.

Ill-Tempered Gnome

Oakshire Brewing - Eugene, OR

By Aaron Brussat

If smoothie beers are the technicolor Millennial dreamcoats in our pint glasses, Oakshire’s perennial Ill Tempered Gnome is the tracksuit-clad, mustachioed uncle who, it turns out, can still hang.

With a clarity that is, these days, unnerving, the Gnome’s mahogany malts echo the elbow-patch polished bars of an English pub; rich, toasty, and comforting in their old days ways. Astride, roughing up the edges, piney and resinous hops give Ill Tempered Gnome its American accent.

The interplay of malt and hop (on a very cleanly fermented palette) resembles an India Red Ale, but only to a point; its balance swings more to the center, and everything is a little heftier, there around the waistline. What surprised me, having not tasted it since last year, was its dryness. There is no dearth of body, and yet it is crisp and drinkable even through its bitterness, and I washed it down in good time and wanted another.

Ill Tempered Gnome is a true Northwest winter ale in that respect; as enticing to the Oregonian palate as a malty beer can be, built for the chilly months, and dangerously pint-able.

Winter Solstice

Anderson Valley Brewing - Boonville, CA

By Michael Perozzo

Every winter, there are two beers I look forward to with great anticipation. One is Glueh Kriek from Cascade Brewing (covered here by Don Scheidt), and the other is Anderson Valley's Winter Solstice. I'll never forget my first sip of the cream-soda-like nuanced winter spiced ale. It's light, yet complex. A 'Dr Pepper' kind of beer, if you will, where new flavors can be discovered with each sip. Or, you can tilt it back by the light of the Christmas tree and not think about it whatsoever. That's the beauty of Winter Solstice.