The best Hamilton craft beers to bring to Christmas dinner
- Michael Kras
- 24 Dec 2019
Okay, okay; the holidays are about family and togetherness and blah blah blah. But they’re also a great excuse to indulge in some delicious local beer, right?
Luckily for local craft beer heads, Hamilton has no shortage of excellent options for you to stock up on last-minute and bring to your festivities to share with your family and friends. Or, I mean, you could also just keep it all to yourself.
First up, make a stop at the O.G. Hamilton craft brewery: Collective Arts Brewing. Not only is their North End brewery always loaded with options from hoppy to sour to sessionable, but they’ve also got their Origin of Darkness series available to sip on at Christmas dinner. This is a series of barrel-aged imperial stouts that are big, boozy collaborations with other breweries from around the world, each variant brewed with wildly experimental adjunct ingredients like black truffles, white miso, strawberries, and guajillo chillies. These are the perfect shareable slow-sipper for the winter months and a great conversation piece.
After that, head south down James North and pull up to Merit Brewing, where you’ll find an excitingly diverse line of craft beer including Then, a hybrid saison aged on Cabernet Franc skins that comes in a large format 750 ml bottle, perfect for sharing at the dinner table. This beer is rewardingly complex enough to appease discerning palates, while remaining approachable enough for the non-craft beer drinkers in your family.
For stop number three, head west to the McMaster University area and hit up Fairweather Brewing, where a particularly special beer awaits in the fridge: Wishing Well 2018, last year’s vintage imperial porter aged on toasted coconut, Niagara Montmorency cherries, cacao, American oak, and Brazilian espresso. Attractively packaged with an exceptional beer inside to match, is a particularly sophisticated offering that’s pretty much guaranteed to impress.
If that’s still not enough beer, Grain&Grit Brewing is directly across the street from Fairweather with a wide range of canned deliciousness available to take home, including Pinky Swear, an IPA with bright fruit notes and banana Runts candy in the flavour profile; and Slow-Mo, a chocolate stout conditioned on French oak that would make the perfect dessert quaff.
Finally, to complete the ultimate Hamilton craft beer line-up, drive up the mountain and head east to Barton and Nash to pop into Clifford Brewing, where you can grab a couple of cans of their crushable East Hamilton Lager, a straightforward offering that’ll appease the hop-averse palates at your party. Of course, it’d be silly not to grab a can or two of their famous, award-winning Clifford Porter, which masterfully balances chocolate and coffee notes with a sturdy malt backbone.
There you have it! A local line-up of craft beer that’s going to make you the favourite person at your holiday get-togethers this week. Cheers, and hoppy holidays!
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