Charlottesville Area Masters of Real Ale

Given the attendance at last night's meeting (~15, yay!), I would again like to start discussions with Court Square to provide commercial examples of the beer we will be discussing at our monthly meetings.  November's beer style will be Winter Warmer.  Does anyone have suggestions on winter warmer commercial beer examples that I should request?  Commercial examples listed in the BJCP include:

- Anchor Our Special Ale
- Harpoon Winter Warmer
- Weyerbacher Winter Ale
- Goose Islane Christmas Ale
- Troegs The Mad Elf
- North Coast Wintertime Ale
- Great Lakes Christmas Ale

Great suggestions. Let's add Brooklyn's Winter Ale and Smuttynose's Winter Ale. Very creative names no doubt. Good meeting!

I'm bummed I missed the action last night!

Here's one for November: Longfellow Winter Ale from Maine

Pyramid also makes a winter warmer called Snow Cap and Sam Adams has Old Fezziwig, and they are both easy to get around here.  They aren't my favorites, but they are in the style.

The initial goal for this style, next month, was to cover the non-spiced versions of the winter warmers.  I don't know how easy that will be to do since this style is all over the map.  Most English versions are unspiced, but many are and they follow more of the wassail model. 

All and all, it might be a good idea to address them as the use of spices in batches can go very wrong on both the homebrew and commercial levels.