Even though the holiday season is over you can still readily find holiday beers in your local store. And while they may have a holiday theme, they still make great beers for the winter season. This happened to me recently when I stumbled upon the Lump of Coal from Ridgeway Brewing. Ridgeway hails from the far away land of the United Kingdom and I haven’t sampled any holiday offerings from overseas (that I can think of), so this was certainly one that I had to try.
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We’ve reviewed a few Evolution beers in the past, all of which are part of their “mainline” offerings. Their Barrel Aged beers, which I’ve had two of so far, are in my opinion in a class above the rest. Courtesy of my friend Matt in Delaware, I have their Fall Migration 2011 which is a Belgian-style Ale aged in Chardonnay barrels with brettanomyces.

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I grabbed the L’Ultima Luna by Birrificio Del Ducato in Italy from my local bottle shop, and was told by the clerk that this was an amazing English Barleywine. Aged in oak barrels for nine months that previously contained “great Italian wines,” I am expecting a nice additional layer of barrel and wine flavors.

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In a totally unplanned coincidence I have another in New Belgium’s Lips of Faith series to review. This one, called Super Cru, is a 10% ABV Belgian Strong Pale Ale brewed with Asian pear juice. An interesting additive to be sure, and not one I’m very familiar with, or one that I have seen before. When this happens I find that it is best to dive right in.

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I had Duchesse De Bourgogne on-tap my very first time trying the beer and fell in love. Shane previously reviewed this beer on draft, so I’ll be reviewing the bottle after recently picking up a gift set of two bottles and matching glass. The beer is fermented in previously used oak wine barrels and is a blend of eight and eighteen month old ales matured in oak barrels.

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