The twelth Geordie beer of Christmas

Durham Brewery 1994

Landmarks are a sentimental aspect of the brewing industry. These days the Anniversary ale is a statement of perseverance, resilience, survival and pedigree. Every successful brewery on earth will one day be seen as dated; Will lose shelf space for the 'new kids on the block' and will be pressured into evolving their product range to suit the new market. This isn't about siding with the old timers, this it seems is the natural way of things.

For me the bold and eccentric bottled beer range of Durham Brewery is what sets them apart from the early days. Long before your Warheads, Imperial Cherry Stouts and double IPAs Durham's strong British and Belgian style ales were the region's high-octane, highly sought-after mega brews. Make no mistake this was in an era where putting out such beers that didn't 'play it safe' took balls.

In obvious honour to this heritage, Durham's anniversary ale is a 10.2% strong ale brewed with pink peppercorns and orange peel. It's certainly an interesting beer. Sweet orange and spice with an almost opal fruit like nuance ride on lively carbonation. The weighty, sweet orange like feel is stripped down by drying carbonation giving a kind of Belgian Tripel/Golden Strong ale like elegance to it. It's more tangy, snappy and racy than it is voluptuous. It's certainly worth trying but for me doesn't rival some of my best experiences with Durham beers.

Then again who am I to judge 20th Anniversary beers, It is after all my turn next...

So that's all from the twelve beer series and, despite restricting this series to local beers only, the overall standard has been great. This year the cheesy cartoon labelled bottles from random micros under dodgy names like Santa's Scrotum have been avoided. The same goes for discount supermarket offerings, all chosen in past series' to fill out the numbers. But sadly, after five successive years of 'twelve beers' this is in fact the last beer of the last series of 'beers of Christmas'.

It's been a long saga of festive beers. Many great memories of festive indulgences over heavy warming brews and sessions livened by festive spice. Every series for me has brought the odd two or three exceptional beers, but there was one especially memorable beer from one of my favourite brewers worldwide. It might have been the right mood and moment but hell there's loads more worth mentioning. Salutes go to Old Dairy, Williams Brothers, Mikkeller, Anchor (year on year), Wold Top, The Bruery, Hook Norton and more. It's been good.