Hardywood’s Coveted Gingerbread Stout Beer Returns for 2022

By Lee Heidel November 4, 2017

As we move deeper into the fall season, inching ever closer to the holidays, the pumpkin frenzy must make room for another flavor: the warm, spicy notes of gingerbread. Right on time, Virginia-based Hardywood Park Craft Brewery is releasing its highly acclaimed Gingerbread Stout (GBS). This year, the fun gets even bigger with a total of eight variants of GBS available through retail (with a few exclusives for sale only at its Richmond brewery).

A glass and a bottle of Hardywood Gingerbread Stout. — Photo by Sarah Der Photography Photo by Sarah Der Photography

Gingerbread Stout
The original imperial milk stout measures 9.2 percent ABV and is brewed with vanilla beans, cinnamon, baby ginger from Casselmonte Farm, and wildflower honey from Bearer Farms. This commitment to supporting local providers is key to Hardywood’s “brew with a purpose” mantra. Six years after its initial launch, fans still clamor for this beer all year long.

Bourbon Barrel GBS
After 12 weeks aging in bourbon barrels, this is the perfect winter warmer. Look for enhanced notes of vanilla and a sweet, clean alcohol sting.

Rum Barrel GBS (brewery only)
Three months spent in Caribbean dark rum barrels smooths out all the edges on this burly sipper.

Apple Brandy Barrel GBS (brewery only)
This variant of Gingerbread Stout is aged with cinnamon-kissed oak staves from apple brandy barrels, adding to the seasonal spice.

Christmas Morning
Another returning fan favorite, Christmas Morning sees the Gingerbread Stout conditioned with locally roasted Mexican Chiapas coffee beans from Black Hand Coffee Co.

Rye Whiskey Barrel GBS (brewery only)
This variant is released in 2017. The GBS is aged in A. Smith Bowman Distillery rye whiskey barrels.

Kentucky Christmas Morning
The previously mentioned delicious Christmas Morning is aged in bourbon barrels — sufficiently amazing.

Double Barrel BBS (brewery only)
Double Barrel GBS is aged for four months in Caribbean dark rum barrels, then transferred into bourbon barrels and aged for another four months. Expect a bold, complex beer ideal for sharing.

Join the brewery’s Family Tree beer club to get a head start on next year’s small batch releases and good luck hunting this year’s bottles individually.

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Lee Heidel is the managing editor of Brew/Drink/Run, a website and podcast that promotes brewing your own beer, consuming the…

Food & Drink

Brewers Association Announces New Beer Styles for 2018

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Brewers Association/Facebook

When evaluating a beer, there’s more to consider than just the flavor. Obviously, the beer should taste good — but that’s a purely subjective qualification. The beer’s flavor, whether an individual preference would deem it tasty or trashy, should follow certain rules applied to its particular classification. That’s where style guides come into play, as reference points for evaluating beer in a non-partisan manner.
The Brewers Association is a non-profit organization promoting independent craft brewers. They maintain the official beer style guidelines used by beer judges in competitions. These guidelines are also used by professional and amateur brewers to influence recipe creation. As the landscape of brewing changes and evolves, the style guides must evolve too. Sometimes beer descriptions are modified to reflect current trends, and the guides can also bring brand new styles into the pantheon.
For 2018, the Brewers Association has added several new categories to the official beer style guidelines. All of these are directly influenced by the creativity and diversity in the current craft beer market.
The first is the Juicy or Hazy Ales category, which is then subdivided into Pale Ale, IPA, and Double IPA styles. Sometimes dubbed New England IPAs or West Coast Hazy IPAs, these new definitions make room for this booming style with official classifications.
Contemporary American-Style Pilsner is also on the docket. With this addition, craft brewers are free from the alcohol by volume and hop aroma regulations in the previous, broader specification checklist.
Pale Ales from Down Under have been separated from one to two categories: Classic Australian-Style Pale Ale and Australian-Style Pale Ale. Due to the increased diversity in the Australian beer scene, having two styles keeps the darker, less aromatic traditional recipes intact with Classic and allows brewers the creativity to continue evolving the genre with paler, hoppier and more flavorful variations in the base style.
Finally, Gose and Contemporary Gose were given some technical adjustments to better separate the historic base beer from the diversity created by modern brewing techniques.
Of all of these changes, the Juicy or Hazy Ales trio of additions stand to have the biggest impact on the marketplace, as well as related controversies. To define why they received three separate specs, Charlie Papazian, chief of the Brewers Association Beer Style Guidelines, said, “What we discovered and verified was that there was a wide range of alcohol content for what was being perceived in the public as just one style.” He went on to say that the other judging components of appearance, aroma, bitterness, hop character, mouthfeel, and overall balance also backed up the decision.
The new guidelines are available for download and reference now at Brewers Association website.

Food & Drink

Welcome to Wheat Wine, a New Beer Style Pioneered by American Brewers

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America's craft beer revolution has spawned more than just economic growth and changes in social patterns. It has also introduced creativity and innovation into a culinary field that had remained mostly unchanged for centuries. That modernization is most easily measured in the increased number of beer styles available. From Sierra Nevada’s definition of the American Pale Ale in 1980 to the new Milkshake IPAs we're seeing from small batch brewers in 2018, the landscape is ever evolving.
One of the more recent styles pioneered by American brewers is the Wheat Wine Ale. A part of the larger “Strong Ale” and “Wheat Ale” subsets, Wheat Wines are known for a higher-than-average alcohol by volume (8-14 percent), a lighter color, and a more moderate bitterness than the frequently compared Barley Wine sect.

The malt base is typically 40-60 percent wheat as opposed to grains or adjuncts. The wheat’s impact is found not only in the lighter color, but also the soft, medium mouthfeel. The milder wheat base allows for barrel-aging and added spices to shine through. The individual recipes can yield varying flavor and aroma profiles from sweet and resinous to dry and floral.
Smuttynose Wheat Wine is perhaps the best known American Wheat Wine. Despite Smuttynose Brewing's recent financial woes (an auction is scheduled for March 9), its 24-year-long career has allowed them to experiment — and, in many eyes, define — the Wheat Wine style. The beer ages well, mellowing into a sweet, warming sipper. But for those who like a more aggressive, herbal hop, drinking it fresh will provide that kick.

Food & Drink

Savannah Music Festival Unveils Signature Beer for 2018

southbound brewing co

The Savannah Music Festival is a week-long event consisting of 100-pluss concerts, and each year it shakes the Spanish moss out of the trees of the sleepy coastal Georgia town. Savannah is one of the few places in the U.S. you can legally stroll the streets with an open container of beer, and festival-goers will have something new for their plastic go-cups this year: the 2018 signature festival beer.

Southbound Brewing Co./Facebook