One Bottle Collection beer for every day before Christmas. Rating system: not actually meant as a “tense” comment. All these beers either don’t exist anymore, or I tasted in the past. Hopefully, if not so hot before, they’re better now. If they do still exist. Or hopefully, if not better they’re as dead as the… Dickens.
Note: the ghosts have varied a bit over the various versions, but even Mr. Magoo’s version the Future was bleak. In the pictures chosen for this series the most visually pleasing ghost was Present.
Ghost of Christmas Present… remember him? Jolly, fun: the kind of guy you’d invite to a party for the season, and the kind of beer you could bring to a festive affair and not be totally laughed out of the room by festive beer geeks. That’s the best a beer gets in this series. Now Ghost of Christmas Past isn’t a great award. You can see from the picture he can be a bit of a grump. Probably from mediocre’ beer. And best not bring a Ghost of Christmas Past Beer to a beer geek festive affair. You’ll be the limp wet noodle of the party. A Ghost of Christmas Future beer? You remember that guy, right? If you want to be laughed at, have to bring most of your offering home and feel like you’ve just attended your own funeral instead of a party, bring a Ghost of Christmas Future beer. Some Ghost of Future Beer might best serve as embalming fluid.
Written by Ken Carman
Stark Mill Holiday
Wow. I do remember this. Stark is no longer in business. The last thing I knew Milly’s Tavern replaced it. I would assume some of the owners, or the staff, are the same since they had a beer with Milly’s picture on it: a black Lab I believe. Just an assumption. Looks like they no longer brew this according to Milly’s site. The Facebook page still uses “Stark Brewing.” There’s a coffee concern in the same restaurant: Stark had the same and a coffee beer.
I remember the brewery as a bit cellar-ish. The beer as complex… a lot of malt: deeply dark with a big, multi, grain. The abv was a tad high but not a sink into the alcoholic warmth beer. More just right for the rather substantial body. Just like the hops. Centennial? That’s a little tougher to remember, to be honest. If it twere spiced: not much. I think I would remember that.
So our highest award goes to Stark’s Holiday.
Without intent, I have collected well over 1,000 beer bottles since the early 70s. When something finally had to be done about the cheap paneling in this old modular, I had a choice. Tear down the walls while, oh, so carefully, replacing the often rotted 1X3s. Or: cover them with… The Bottle Collection.
