Merry Christmas!

Delir­i­um Noël, orig­i­nal­ly uploaded by J T. Ram­say.

I drank my way to the per­fect Christ­mas. No, I did­n’t drink myself into a stu­por, only to spend the hol­i­day in a soporif­ic haze. I think I actu­al­ly drank the per­fect amount of beer to enjoy myself and still be help­ful with Charlie.

I shared a bomber of Delir­i­um Noel Christ­mas night, but the real sur­prise was a six­er of Lagu­ni­tas Brown Shug­ga I picked up at Weg­man’s. Deli­cious! If you see any at your local dis­trib­u­tor, be sure to pick it up. It’s a per­fect beer for the hol­i­days, and it’s decep­tive­ly easy drink­ing, even at 9.8% ABV. Watch out!

I found myself just a tad dis­ap­point­ed in Bel­l’s Win­ter White Ale. I am all for a lighter beer around the hol­i­days, but this felt more like a sum­mer beer with a new label slapped on the bot­tle. I think it was a mis­take on my part to expect a del­i­cate win­ter warmer at 5.0% ABV.

If there’s one res­o­lu­tion I man­aged to keep this year, it was my effort to broad­en my palate when it comes to craft beer. I think the days of me hoist­ing IPA after IPA are behind me. I’m try­ing sub­tler fla­vors (and low­er ABVs.) I’d like to take a class next year to fig­ure out the fin­er points of beer, rather than just pre­tend I know how to iden­ti­fy any­thing that isn’t a mas­sive hops fla­vor. Can any­one rec­om­mend a good one in the Philly area?

Last, but not least, I’d like to thank the great Philly beer writ­ers for intro­duc­ing me to new and dif­fer­ent brews through­out 2009. I don’t know where or what I’d be drink­ing were it not for Lew Bryson, Jack Curtin, Joe Six­pack, and Suzy Woods. Plen­ty of peo­ple say — right­ful­ly so — that Philly’s a great beer city. They’re right, but they’d be mis­tak­en if it weren’t made bet­ter by the peo­ple I’ve list­ed here.  If you live in Philly and like beer and you’re not read­ing their blogs, you’re prob­a­bly miss­ing out on some great stuff. They’re all invalu­able to the Philly beer scene. If you see them out, be sure to buy them a pint!