There’s many drink types and styles that have become synonymous with Christmas, be it Red Wine, Mulled Wine or Cider or even (dare we say it) Bucksfizz, but the original alcoholic compliment to the festive season was beer.
There is of course plenty of Christmas beer out there to choose from, usually invoking thoughts of rich, dark, spiced, malty beers high in ABV so while you’re tucking into one of these beauties let us delve into the origins of them.
These beers would have been brewed as far back as the druids to keep them warm in the colder months but the traditions surrounding beer came became prevalent was with the Roman Pagans when they celebrated Saturnalia. Saturn was the god of agriculture and many traditions were formed that are still practised today, from hanging wreaths, burning candles, giving gifts, huge feasts and, of course, lots of beer. Many Christmas beers have been named after this holiday.
As Christianity spread across Europe many different cultures had various versions of these dark beers and their importance grew. In 920AD King Haakon of Norway even made it law that all people in his country had to brew a Christmas beer or be served with a fine, fail to brew a beer 3 years in a row and you’d lose everything you owned. It’s safe to say people had definitely gotten serious about their Christmas brewing!
Over the following centuries the Christian faith leaned heavily on these original festivals to recruit people, what better way to pique someone’s interest than with the promise of big boozy parties after all? As a result these annual beers started being brewed in monasteries across Europe.
Belgian monks were already well versed with brewing beers for sale but they were only brewing one type of beer, a low ABV “everyday” beer which was low in strength and flavour. At the same time British and particularly Scottish beer was becoming more and more popular and was starting to be exported to the continent. These Scotch Ales were darker, fuller in flavour and much stronger in ABV.
These beers were repackaged as “Christmas Scotch Ales” and with a bit of time the Belgian’s started to create their own versions of these big, dark, strong ales for the festive period and the Christmas beer that we know today was born.
The Christmas beer style isn’t restricted like other styles and can be whatever the brewer finds to be festive which can be anything from heavily spiced sticky Barleywine-esque brews to mega dark Trappist Ales.
So whether you’re tucking into a St Bernadus Noel or a Hacker Pshorr Festbier this 25th of December cheers from us at Kraft Werks, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!