Many craft breweries offer a special brew for the holidays. The Shipyard Brewing Company offers two, Longfellow Winter Ale and Prelude Holiday Ale. Either one is a fit beer for any holiday celebration, but Prelude is the bigger of the two beers at 1078 OG to Longfellow's 1062. It’s also slightly heftier in alcohol at 6.8% by volume. Still, that’s not monstrously heavy as craft beers go today.

Prelude has a deep, burnt orange color, a big toasty malt nose and very little carbonation. The palate is a wonderful mixture of rich, toasty pale ale, crystal, and chocolate malts (with a bit of torrefied wheat thrown in for good measure) and buttery Ringwood character. Cascades, Tettnangs, Fuggles, and American Goldings give this beer a balanced, slightly bitter finish. An excellent winter warmer in classic English tradition.

Of course, I’ll admit I have a great fondness for Ringwood beers. Having lived in New England for most of my life, I always enjoyed trips to Portland Maine, where Shipyard is located. So, I suppose, that makes me a little prejudiced when writing about this brew. It doesn't matter. It's fantastic stuff, even after sitting in my beer fridge for six months (sample purchased in winter 1999). Rich, malty, buttery, loaded with funky Ringwood mushroomy yeastiness, lots of cake-like chewy malt, a little fruit, and a bitter English hop finish. Just wonderfully complex stuff. Maybe even better than sex, but don't tell my wife I said that.

In the winter of 2000, I wrote this about Prelude:

 Once again, Shipyard has produced one of the finest holiday seasonal beers in my estimation. The 2000 edition of Prelude pours to a deep brown color with a light head formation and a delicious, incredibly toasty malt nose that you just get lost in. The palate is big and chocolatey, slightly sweet malty, a big, bold and heavy brown ale with strong crystal malt notes, some Ringwood butteriness, and an intense hop finish. A really wonderful beer, I’m enjoying it tonight with a slice of German stollen, or Christmas cake.

---

Update January 12, 2007: And now here it is, winter 2007, January to be precise. I’m about to watch the New England Patriots play the Jacksonville Jaguars in the AFC playoffs, and in honor of my team I’ve just popped a bottle of Prelude. A classic New England beer for a classic New England team. And yes, Prelude is now distributed all the way down here in Atlanta, Georgia, where I currently reside.

And it’s still as delightful as ever. That buttery, rich sweet molasses nose pulls you right in to the rich yeastiness, rum-raisin fruitiness, rich chocolatey plum pudding body, toasty and caramelly malt notes, mushroomy,  butterscotch laden yeast flavors, and a drying herbal bitterness.

Do yourself a favor when you see this brew: grab a bunch. You'll be glad you did, and you can thank me later.

Update July 16th,2015: How about Prelude for Christmas in July? Each year, I am fond of socking away Christmas beers for an annual July celebration. Shipyard's Prelude is a perfect candidate as it can easily stand up to the 9 months or so of age on it. This year, the alcohol content is slightly lower at 6.7% but the beer is wonderfully malty with notes of chocolate, rum-raisin ice cream, spice cake, butterscotch chocolate. It's all dried out by a gentle herbal bitterness that makes this beer amazing indeed, be it on a frigid December evening or a blazing hot July one.

And remember, try a new beer today, and drink outside the box.

*Pricing data accurate at time of review or latest update. For reference only, based on actual price paid by reviewer.

(B)=Bottled

(D)=Draft

 



Home