Chilling Out with Hot Mulled Beer & Cider

Rain and cold be damned, resilient businesses around the Pacific Northwest are determined to accommodate their customers throughout the winter while adhering to COVID-safe guidelines. To help with what promises to be a weird winter to say the least, a couple of Portland-area breweries and cideries are also offering hot beverages that serve as a complement to sitting on a chilly patio. 

When it comes to hot alcoholic drinks, most people think about hot toddys, Irish coffee, mulled wine and cider. At Portland Cider Co., they serve traditional mulled cider at their tap rooms every winter, and this year they decided to add something a little different. While their classic version is made with a mix of mulling spices added to their Pumpkin Spice cider and is full of festive spice with cinnamon, clove, allspice, ginger and nutmeg, their Peach Berry version is more in the style of a traditional Hot Mulled Wine, according to Helen Lewis, who handles marketing for Portland Cider Co. Full of fruity, rich notes from the cider, but with a touch of holiday spice from the cinnamon, anise star, close and allspice in the mulling spice kit. She notes that they stumbled on this idea by accident. 

“We QC check every canning, which involves heating up the cider at one point and taste testing it. Our team noted it actually tasted really good warmed up, so we experimented with different spices one weekend and made this kit!” 

PeachBerry Cider heats up well in a crock pot with mulling spices

Portland Cider Co. is currently offering both kinds of hot cider in special to-go kits so you can pick it up and make it at home using their recipe for plenty of holiday cheer. 

Perhaps lesser known than cider is hot beer. Sometimes referred to as mulled beer, this concoction typically involves a combination of spices, fruit and beer warmed to a soul-pleasing temperature. In other words, it’s an ideal drink for the holiday season or any cold winter night. It can also be done using lower alcohol beer, offering a break from those barrel-aged stouts you’ve been glugging down to get through these dark days. 

While hot, mulled beverages are fairly common in the cider and cocktail worlds, you don’t often come across them in the beer scene. Jarek Szymanski, brewer and owner at Threshold Brewing & Blending in Portland’s Montavilla neighborhood, hopes to change this with a nostalgia-laced treat that he remembers from growing up in Poland. 

“Traditionally, as I remember from my earlier days, a light lager or ale was used as a perfect base for spiced beer, something around 4 or 5%. When you warm up a beer, a lot of volatile flavor and aromas tend to escape. The mulling of the heated beer with wintery spices and citrus give the traditional Grzaniec flavor,” says Szymanski. “It's a hot beverage that is perfect for warming up after a day out in the elements, whether that's skiing, snowshoeing, hiking, or just enduring a day-long Portland drizzle. It's a seasonal beverage in Poland, served during late fall and winter and especially enjoyed during the holiday season. To me, it's a reminder of warmth and good times with my friends. It simply puts me in a festive mood.” 

Instead of using lager, he puts his own spin by using Threshold's 'Jens Bailed' grisette as the base beer for Grzaniec, which is part of what sets it apart from cider. 

“Using beer vs cider as a base is going to naturally offer just a bit of welcome bitterness to Grzaniec. That's a really nice contrast to the mulling spices used and what distinguishes Grzaniec from a sweet mulled cider,” says Szymanski.  

For those looking for something a little bolder, Szymanski is hoping to introduce a dark version of Grzaniec this winter using an imperial stout with a slightly different set of spices that he thinks will hold weight with the higher abv and bigger flavor of the stout.

Glueh Kriek served at Cascade Brewing Barrel House’s insulated patio

Another Portland brewery, Cascade Brewing, has been serving two completely different styles of hot beer for a handful of years. Their Mulled Apple Sour is a blend of barrel aged blond and red ales with cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger and vanilla, and back-sweetened with fresh apple cider and honey. The popular Glueh Kriek is a blend of barrel aged red and blond ales with tart cherries and Bing cherries, spiced with cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, orange peel and allspice, then back-sweetened with honey and served with an orange wedge.

Kevin Martin, Director of Brewery Operations, references two different sources of inspiration for these beers.

“Glueh Kriek was inspired by the Gluehwein (hot spiced wine) of central Europe typically served during the Winter holiday season at outdoor markets. Mulled Apple Sour was inspired by the hot mulled ciders of New England during the fall and winter seasons.”

Martin points out that “the heat in the beer helps amplify certain flavors and aromas that are less prevalent when served cold,” adding that, because “CO2 tends to push out of the beer more rapidly at hot temperatures, carbonation levels in hot beers are typically much lower as well to prevent excess foaming.” 

As is the case with Grzaniec, the combination of spices plays a vital role in both of Cascade’s hot offerings. 

“Spice aromatics in these beers really come alive when served warm as well, and because we associate baking spices such as cinnamon, clove, nutmeg and ginger with warm foods like cookies and cakes, these beers can provide an olfactory experience that triggers fond holiday or winter memories. Generally speaking, hot beers offer a cozy, almost nostalgic experience, especially during the holiday season – and in 2020, we could all use a little more of that warm fuzzy feeling.”

Brothers Cascadia’s Yule Grog

At Brothers Cascadia in Vancouver, WA, they are also using sour beer but in an even funkier way. According to Head Brewer and Co-owner Jason Bos, their Yule Grogg “comes from a handful of different red wines barrels that each had a different culture makeup that created unique barrel offerings with differing flavor profiles, but together created a lightly tart and Brett forward blend. The amalgamation was then blended with and fermented on freshly crushed Pinot Noir grapes.”

As if that doesn’t already sound delicious, they then take the beer and heat it up with cinnamon, cranberries and cloves, then served with an orange slice. “The end product is warming beverage suited for patio seating in December,” says Bos.

In fact, Bos cites Cascade’s Glueh Kriek as one of the inspirations for their beer and acknowledges that, while it “isn’t the most popular way to drink a beer, in this crazy year that we’ve all had this may be the most sane thing we’ve seen all 2020!”

Now that we are all out of our freeze, you can head warm up at Threshold, Cascade or Brothers Cascadia and sip their hot beer just in time for Christmas. You can also support the breweries by purchasing beer to-go and making your own mulled beer or cider at home. At Threshold, they are offering Grzaniec to-go kits that include their grisette, house spice blend for steeping and recipe/instructions. You can also check out Jarek’s recipe below…

Threshold Brewing’s Grzaniec

How to make Grzaniec at home:

• Use any type of light, not overly bitter beer.

• Cinnamon, clove, orange peel are the base spice components, play with amounts and ratios for your own recipe.

• I use a bit of honey to back-sweeten the beer and compensate for some of the bitterness and to let the spices shine. 

• Warm up to 130-160F, steep your spices for a few minutes and add honey. Do not go over 176F because that's the temperature when alcohol starts evaporating.

• Feeling like you are getting a cold or perhaps need some hair of the dog? In Poland, you wouldn't be wrong to add an egg yolk (yes, an egg yolk!) to your Grzaniec and enjoy!