Not in the mood for a gingerbread latte? Here's a list of the best Christmas beers

 Two decades have passed since John and Chris Troegner decided to brew a craft beer to mark the holiday season at Troegs Brewing, the Hershey, Pennsylvania, facility they founded in late 1996.

Most "Christmas beers" existing at the time relied on dark malt and seasonal baking spices like cinnamon, cardamom, cloves and nutmeg, but the Trogners wanted to add something different: They both loved the flavor of sweet and sour cherries, and their operation was a Just down the road from the local honey source.

Using Belgian yeast packing holiday flavors, they threw everything together on Friday, then left the batch out to see what nature's elves would stir up overnight.

When they returned the next day, the effect was too great.

John Trogner remembered, "We could smell this incredible aroma of cherries and yeast." “The yeast fermented so intensely that the beer came out of the tank. It smelled great, but we lost half the batch.”

This is how The Mad Elf began, now among Santa's Workshop Christmas beers that hit store shelves this time of year, brightening the spirit.

“People loved it,” Trogner said. “It's perfect for holiday celebrations, bringing friends and family together. “We could never make enough wine.”

But what exactly is Christmas beer? And what makes it different from winter beers?

'This is where we get to be creative'

It depends on the brewer. While industry guidelines outline parameters for certain types of beer – e.g., American-style amber lagers, or British-style imperial stouts – no such definition dictates what Christmas should include.

"Holidays and Christmas ales leave it open to interpretation," Trogner said. “As brewers, this is where we have the opportunity to be creative.”

Christmas beers, then, aren't so much a style of beer as they are a ceremonial nod to the season, a cousin of dark winter warmers meant to cheer up a time of festive, sweater-weather gatherings. Like winter beers, they are also open to experimentation, typically dark and malty rather than hoppy, often barrel-aged, with higher alcohol content. The combined effect is designed to give you the fuzzies.

"He has some weight," said Dan Baker, better known as Danny Fullpint, of The Full Pint blog and podcast, based in Greater Los Angeles. "It's not like the 4.4% Modelo Speciale."

However, Christmas brews take this idea even further, incorporating fruit flavors, sweetness, spices, and holiday smells. Think mint, gingerbread cookies and evergreens – and spices like cinnamon, cloves, cardamom and vanilla.

"The thing that really sets them apart are the spices, the flavors," Baker said. “They're trying to capture the imagination, like – it's Christmas in a bottle.”

For example, there's Bronx Brewery's Jingle Jangle Holiday Ale, marked by cinnamon and vanilla; Jubelele from Deschutes Brewery in Bend, Oregon, with notes of toffee and dusted cocoa; Fireside Chat, from 21st Amendment Brewing in San Leandro, California, with flavors of toffee and cocoa nibs; and Santa's Private Reserve, a stout from Rogue Ales & Spirits in Newport, Oregon, packed with flavors of tahini, tangerine and chocolate.

On the other hand, there are lighter beers like the famous Saison Dupont's Avec les Bons Voix ("With good wishes"), a smooth and charmingly rich saison-style beer that forgoes the traditional spices altogether for lemon, black pepper and banana. Gives.

“Winter is a big drinking season in itself, but breweries are even more so with Christmas beers,” said Joshua Justice, director of marketing and social media for Flying Saucer Draft Emporium, a Dallas-Fort Worth-based taproom operation with locations throughout Texas. Let's move ahead." And south.

Naturally, the story of Christmas beer begins with Vikings

In San Francisco, Anchor Brewing's Christmas Ale, introduced in 1975, was considered by beer connoisseurs to be the grandfather of modern holiday beers before the 127-year-old company's demise earlier this year, Baker said. The historic craft brewery announced last year that it would no longer produce its beloved seasonal beers and would cease operations in July.

But the Christmas beer tradition dates back a millennium, Justice said, tracing back to the Vikings, who made barley-based ale; As their winter "Jul" celebration transformed into Christmas over time with the rise of Christianity, so too did the tradition of enjoying a good drink with close friends and family.

According to BeerAndBrewing.com, a medieval ale known as Lambswool – so called for the foam that lines its surface – was made with roasted apples, nutmeg, ginger and honey.

Christmas beers took advantage of winter traditions, a time of togetherness, Justice said, which also offered better brewing conditions before widespread refrigeration: Yeasts don't develop stress in cold temperatures as they do in heat. They are now produced by breweries throughout the United States and Europe, particularly England, Belgium, and Germany.

The modern Christmas beer originated with the beginning of the craft beer movement in the 1970s and early 1980s, with small breweries such as California's Anchor and Sierra Nevada and Boston's Samuel Adams leading the way. Anchor's version, the recipe of which was never disclosed but was said to be tweaked each year, was flavored with spruce tips, cloves, and citrus.

"One of the magical things about that beer was that whatever changes they made, they never gave up," Baker said. “So it was left up to the drinker's imagination, where people could say it tasted like spruce or molasses. That was kind of the lore behind that beer.

This, he said, has revealed a quirk in the industry – that seasonal beers taste different every year, whether that's good or bad.

He said, "There are people, like my dad, who will say 'Oh, last year it was a little better,' or "They finally made it as good as it was two years ago." Still, he said, "It's a There's a magical thing that people look forward to and go back every year.”

'Tis the season for Christmas beers -- but it doesn't last long

In general, the Christmas beer season runs from Thanksgiving to New Year's Day, although some beers may also appear as early as Halloween.

"We say, the holidays don't start until you have your first Mad Elf," said Trogner of Troegs. "My tradition is, I put the Thanksgiving turkey in the oven with the Mad Elf in hand."

Timing is a trick for growers and sellers, Baker said.

"The challenge with all seasonals, especially the Christmas season, is that after December 31st, no one is going to go to the store to buy them," he said. “It's a fine line. You have to time it perfectly so that you can sell enough to make it worthwhile.

The good thing is that as many Christmas beers age, enthusiasts save them to compare with their later versions.

"The most loyal fans of Anchor's Christmas beers will save them for five or 10 years," Baker said. “There was a whole culture around that beer.”

With age, Mad Elf's raisin flavor becomes more pronounced, Trogner said, as its cherry flavor diminishes and increases.

"It's kind of fun to see those subtle changes," Trogner said. “We work hard to make it as consistent as possible. But you can't control nature."

However, you can try: Trogner said that as the brewery's operations have grown, he and his brother have designed extra-tall tanks specifically with Mad Elf's monster foam in mind.

"We didn't want it to go on tanks again," he said.