27th anniversary winter ale has a hazelnut-chestnut-walnut essence, seasonal pine luminescence, and pronounced mint-y clove follow-through. Its busy spiciness, rich creaminess, and sugary caramel malting anchor strong medicinal finish.

Nearly bock-like with its dusky prune intimacy, chewy toffee-caramel malting, and soft hop-spiced tingle. Gritty cereal-grained subtlety aids moderate cinnamon-toasted nuttiness, but herbal seasoning lacks.

Pride of the Chesapeake Bay, this spry citrus-scented winter treat cloaks sweet malt essence with dark fruity pungency and crisp hop supplement. But it’s closer to briskly carbonated summer ale than spicier heartily robust holiday seasonal.

Rust auburn wintry ale gains prickly spice-hopped tongue to complement ripe peach sweetness, orange rind bitterness, and grapefruit peel souring. Thick chocolate-cocoa malts linger below descending smoked wood cadence.

Extremely sour raisin-fig frontage encounters vinous mouth-puckering gueuze-like grape esters before burnt coffee acridity pushes forward. Raw cocoa-chocolate malt astringency annuls tepid walnut-hazelnut inadequacy and barren winter spicing. Brewery defunct: 2003.

Peculiar ginger-aided beer with copper hue and holiday ale spicing. Though never overbearingly eccentric, Pete’s definitely done better.

Well calibrated, boldly boozy, full-bodied winter seasonal not dissimilar to complex pale ales, yet not as distinctively detailed as Samuel Smith’s Nut Brown or Oatmeal Stout. Sweet whiskey malts inform creamy vanilla-butterscotch frontage and cinnamon-nutmeg-spiced fruitiness contrasts slinky orange peel bittering. Sugar plum, stewed prune, and rum cake illusions relieve ancillary red cherry, pear, and marmalade snip to medicinal finish.

Apt copper-toned seasonal with cinnamon toasted apple jacking, modest dry-hopped spicing and barley-roasted caramel chocolate malting given mild cherry encore. Ashy spruce embers cloak tart citric whim.

Serviceable clear garnet-ruby winter warmer less sweet than past seasonals, downplaying traditional cinnamon-nutmeg spicing for gingerbread-allspice-coriander conflux, raisin-currant backdrop, and molasses mellifluence. Smoked cedar and pine needles emerge mid-palate, whisked away by vegetative riptide, cigar ash dash, and cola nut hint.

Passable bottle-conditioned penny-hued Belgian holiday ‘saison’ counters tannic white grape tartness with dried prune-raisin confluence abruptly sweetened by brown sugar dalliance. But muted dry pulp finish loses luster after fourth sip.

Resilient Grand Marnier mouthfeel and capacious anise nosing lose stamina for sedately alcoholic Holiday treat. Desolate rum-soaked raisin tinge and muted cinnamon-nutmeg spicing squander silky sweet butterscotch elegance to husked wheat backbone. ’13 version: demure cinnamon-spiced brown sugaring and murky fig-date conflux mired by bland crystal malting.

Slightly turbid, rust-browned, non-spiced holiday ale regaled by corky single malt Scotch oeuvre, leathery peat-smoked earthiness, dehydrated orange tartness and vinegary white wine tannins. Dense prune dryness and fruited hop tang score mid-palate, but complacent finish dulled by diminished chocolate malt souring and dreary cocoa-chalked bitterness.