Sorry this is coming so late in the month! I have five beers slated for the holiday season and I'm anticipating getting through them all by the big day itself. 

Is your tree trimmed? Are your lights up? Gifts secured and wrapped? Mine, neither (well, okay, our tree is trimmed and lights are up. The gifts are another story). December's hectic. Take a moment, grab a cold one, and snuggle up for the first Christmas season post of 2024: State of Brewing's Holiday Ale.

Have I really never talked about Yuengling on the blog? Hold on--let me do a quick check. Okay, yeah, that's wild. I guess I've really never done up a Yuengling beer before. Well, I get to correct that today.

You may recall how, last March, I bemoaned the fact that there were just a few bocks on the market. This year's different. I'm sure Yuengling's released their Bock Beer in prior years but I've never seen it before 2024. But, now that I have it in hand, let's see how America's Oldest Brewery treats this classic and beloved German style lager.

I'm making the second post of 2023's Maple Month a fun one. I try to nab an extra bottle/can of the beers I discuss in November whenever I'm able, in the hope that I'm able to revisit them some Maple Month down the road. I have a small shelf in my beer cabinet dedicated to this.

Do you remember two years back when I did up Goose Island's maple-forward Bourbon County Brand Stout? I loved it, giving it my highest recommendation. Since I'm keeping things compressed this month, I figured I could break into my second (of two!) bottles of the beer today. Let's see if BCBS Special #4 is just as good at three years old as it was at one.

Today's beer is one that I've wanted to get around to for some time. See, Listermann's a brewery whose name always grabs my attention. This means that I've been bummed when I see their Oktoberfest out in the wild because, historically, it drops just after I cement my Oktoberfest lineup for the blog.

Today's post is something of a rarity around these parts: A non-alcoholic beer. The last one I drank for the blog was in February '20, just before the pandemic hit the US. If you'll recall, I enjoyed it.

May, June, and (excepting Christmas in July) July slipped by me. I'd say I don't know how, but that'd be a bold-faced lie. I know exactly how those three months got lost: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom released. I knew it was coming and I knew it'd consume my life. That's exactly what happened.

It seems as though New Holland stumbled upon a whole den of dragons, each slumbering atop a separate pile of treasure. Only earlier this week did I unleash my post of the series' bourbon barrel aged red ale. Now my attention's focused on the next great slumbering wyrm: Tales of Gold.

It's nearly Christmas now. My child's nestled, all snug (for this exact moment) in his bassinet. He has no idea that Santa's coming tonight to leave presents for us to open with him tomorrow.

Great Notion is a brewery of no small renown that, until this post, I've never tried. Men with greater fame and wealth than my own have claimed it to be "...the best beer on the planet, man."

Southern Tier Brewing Company's no stranger around the blog (although my last post about one of their offerings was a little over two years ago). 

Southern Tier's Pumpking's no stranger to me. I've had it before. I've had a rum barrel variant of it. I've had a pre-aged variant (I can't find trace of this online, but it was just Pumking STBC held onto for something like three years before releasing it for purchase and consumption). It's a beer I know pretty well, and a beer that (anecdotally) many of my friends adore.

Today, I'm righting a small wrong. Today, I'm finally giving Pumking a full John Likes Beer treatment.

We have, after nearly a month, now arrived at the penultimate Oktoberfest 2022 post. When I wake up now, the temperatures are in the 40s (that's Fahrenheit, mind you). Soon enough, there'll be dawn frost, the trees will finally don their autumn's best, and Michelle and I will be carving our little family of Halloween Jack-o'-lanterns. 

But, before we get to all that, we have to run out September and the final few Oktoberfest-style lagers. So, today we're doing the single can I bought of Toppling Goliath's entry into the canon. How's it drink?

This has been an absolute whirlwind of a summer and I've been torn pretty damn asunder by it. Luckily, today's about tradition. It's July 25th. That means one thing: Christmas in July!

I have something special for you today: The 2021 variant of the Bruery's 2 Turtle Doves. This dropped late in the holiday season last year and, against whatever odds might have been stacked against me, I managed to track a single bottle of it down before it sold out. Now, it's time to pop it open and see how Christmassy I can make the rest of the day.

It's time, at last, for the first true breakfast beer post of the month. Hey, I made it nearly two weeks before ripping the seal off of that one, which has to count for something, right?

Today's offering comes to us from Rusty Rail. I've only had a single beer from them before and it impressed the hell out of me. This means that I have pretty damn high expectations for what I have on hand today: Waffle Sauce. If it holds up to those expectations, good news! I have a pint of it to drink. If it's bad, well, I'll still finish the pint.

Today's beer is one that I've never had before (but one that you very well might've): Shipyard's Pumpkinhead. Back before I started getting into pumpkin beer, I'd see the familiar label on grocery store shelves. In those days, the few pumpkin ales I had didn't quite hook me and, as a result, I stayed far away from the style. It wasn't until I moved to Cincinnati that I gave the gourdy beers another go.

All this to say, while Pumpkinhead's been on my radar, it's never made it onto my to-try list. This year, though, that's changing. Let's see how this holiday classic is drinking in 2021.

Do you remember back in January when I discussed a beer from Breakside Brewery? If so, you may recall that my buddy from Portland, OR brought it as well as another bottle. In the post, I mentioned that I'd save that second bottle for a time closer to Halloween since it was pumpkiny.

Well, I'm breaking into that second bottle now. All the way from Oregon, we have 2 Towns Ciderhouse's Hollow Jack'd. It's been aging in my cellar since January with a bottling date of "1910HWJ07" (which I'm choosing to interpret as October 7th, 2019). Let's see how the bottle's drinking a year and a week after being bottled.

Long time readers may recall two years ago when I drank Platform's Yammy Yammy, a 7.7% ABV sweet potato pumpkin pie-spiced ale. I didn't like it much. It garnered a 6.0/10 rating.

But, never one to learn lessons, I was tempting into purchasing the two new Yammy varieties Platform dropped for this spooky season: Candied Pecan Yammy and S'mores Yammy. Why? Because I found them easily enough (which might not be so simple to do now--I haven't seen S'mores Yammy in the wild since I grabbed my sixer). How do they stack up to the base sweet potato ale? We'll see!

Fun fact: I've never had a Sonder beer before. The brewery's based out of Mason, OH. This means it's local enough to me for it to be somewhat of an oddity that I've never before sampled their wares. I say "somewhat of an oddity" because, believe it or not, there's still a small smattering of local-ish breweries I've never tried. But, I digress.

When I saw that Sonder had an Oktoberfest, I knew that I had to add it to the beers I'd be drinking on the blog this season (being one of the first of the style to hit the Cincy market played into its being featured, too). I stuck a can of this in a sixer I built last month, and, until I put it in my fridge this morning, that's where it's been. But now it's cold and I'm thirty. Let's get to it.

This is a special, un-announced post because, well, I wasn't sure I'd be able to find this beer. We'll get into Black is Beautiful in a bit, but it's a big collaboration effort spanning breweries the world over. I wasn't sure what the distribution footprint of any one variant would be, so I was super excited when I found a four-pack of Streetside's on store shelves yesterday. I'm hoping I run into other breweries' spins on it in the wild, too.


Also, this is my first ever Streetside beer! What a beer to introduce them to both me and the blog. Let's see how it's drinking.

Today I'm taking a break from my COVID-induced Tales from the Cellar series. I know I only have one of those left and, well, that'll just have to be for my next post. Because today--well, today I have something special.


Last weekend I was at my local bottleshop and lucked out. After a week of searching for the latest Dragon's Milk Reserve, I finally found some in the wild. Scotch Barrel-Aged Stout with Marshmallow & Dark Chocolate. Usually I'm not big on beers that feature marshmallow (there's only one s'mores beer I've had that I enjoy), but the Scotch barrel-aging had me intrigued and, come on, it's Dragon's Milk. Why wouldn't I give it a go?

Here's hoping you're willing to follow me along for the ride on this one.

Well, folks. We've officially made it through second winter. Last weekend it was 80°. Then, over the course of the days after that, it dipped back down into the 30°s. Now, it seems like we've settled into an agreeable average that lands somewhere in the 60°s. For now. This is Ohio, so that's likely to change.


Since we're still under Stay at Home orders from the governor (in fact, his office just extended this out until May first), I'm still breaking into my cellar for beer. Like last time, I selected my beer again--in a very similar fashion. I opened my cabinet, plunged my hand in, and stuck what I pulled out of it into my fridge. To my pleasant surprise it turned out to be Blue Owl's 2018 Ol' Wee Beastie. Let's get into it.