Spencer & Lynn

Beer Advent

2021

Once again, we had a blast putting together our annual Craft Beer Advent Calendar!!  We've thoughtfully chosen twenty-four of the best beers to enjoy in December 2021, and wrapped them up together as the best advent calendar ever:  one that surprises you with a new, limited, seasonal beer every day!  

We've represented many of the best cans and bottles coming from our amazing local craft beer scene, alongside some ancient, traditional brews from across the planet, and even included some new and unexpected flavors and styles as well.  With an array of IPAs, a smattering of sours, some crisp clean lagers, some way more obscure and nerdy lagers, plus all the roasty malty dark beers you could possibly want to keep you cozy throughout this holiday season... this year's selection is sure to delight any craft beer drinker, from novice to connoisseur.  

We thank you for joining us for our second annual Beer Advent Calendar, and invite you to sip along with these daily tasting notes that we’ve put together for each individual beer.  Once again for your convenience we saved the heaviest-hitters - those with alcohol contents over 7% - for the weekends.  We sincerely hope you enjoy these selected seasonal offerings as much as we really do too!!  

Cheers to you, cheers to craft beer, and cheers to the 2021 holidays!
Kim, James, Kelly, Jules, Jessica, Kathryn, Ashley, David & Pamela

Blenderie Ommegang Super Kreik 2020

Oudenaarde, Belgium / Cooperstown, NY - 7% abv

“[Ommegang Super Kreik Batch 003]’s a very krieky beer, the kind you might take home to mother for the holidays.”  -Rick James

We naturally wanted to end this year’s advent calendar with something special, so all of us at S&L are super excited to share this incredible beer with you.  We chose a fun and festive bottle that’s large enough to share with your loved ones:  a Blenderie Ommegang bottling made in collaboration with their Belgian partners at Liefman’s Brewery.  This 2020 vintaged release is a blend of Liefman’s Flemish Oud Bruin and Kriek cherry ale, both aged for several years in oak barrels then shipped to America to be blended at Ommegang Brewery.  

This masterpiece is powerful, complex, and balanced, with stunning flavors like tart cherry jam on top of a black forest cake.  The kriek, with its bright juicy sour cherry flavor, is a perfect match for the richer malty backbone of the tart oud bruin, and the woody barnyard funk notes join the party to add even more complexity.  Making this distinctive beer even more special, the year spent patiently aging in its bottle for you to open and enjoy today gave everything a bit of extra time to meld together more seamlessly.  Any beer such as this one, with its high acidity and its abundance of flavor and oak tannins, has just the structure needed for spending the past year in a cellar.  We think it’s positively singing now, but the fresh fruit would likely hang on for another year or so too, if you decide to age it in a cool dark closet or basement.

We sincerely wish you enjoyed this year’s craft selection as much as we have.  Hopefully you got to experience new beers, let your kriek flags fly, and had a great time this holiday season!  

Happy Holidays and Happy New Year,
from all of us at Spencer & Lynn 💙

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