According to Delilah’s owner and “beer weirdo” Mike Miller, annually there are around 40 beers in the marketplace specifically identified as “Winter” or “Christmas” beers. There’s no single style that typifies them, but they’re usually brown, sometimes spiced or unpasteurized, and almost always strong, which makes them good, even desirable, for aging. At the end of every year Miller puts the bar’s leftovers in the basement in anticipation of the next Christmas and Winter Beer Tasting. This Saturday is the eighth annual, and Miller has enough old brews on hand for some really rare and interesting deep vertical tastings, say five years of King and Barnes Christmas Ale, from an English brewery that’s been inoperative since 2000. “I want to know what all the Christmas beers taste like in the marketplace,” says Miller. “And I want to know what many of them taste like after a couple years in the bottle. The only way for me to find out is to do it myself and it would be very irresponsible for me to open 100 beers for my own personal consumption. So I invite everybody to come and join me and get a good session of booze school in.” $20 gets you 20 sample tickets. Registration starts at noon and the tasting lasts until 5 PM; the bar’s at 2771 N. Lincoln.
