The last six weeks of the year, with a different holiday almost every week: Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Christmas, New Year’s Eve! There’s get together almost every week. A holiday gathering is a time for family, friends, and food, but it’s also a time for a great beer. Here are the best beers you need to try at particular times at your festivities.

Best Beers To Serve At Your Next Holiday Party

Beers for the Early Afternoon

This is your starting beer, to go with the first appetizers and the first football game on TV. So try any of the following:

Some brand of craft lager. You need a craft lager that’s easy to enjoy and pleasing for the maddening crowd. You can try the Great Lakes Brewing Company’s Dortmunder Gold Lager, Firestone Walker Brewing Company’s Pivo Pils, and Unita Brewing’s Baba Black Lager.
Boulevard Brewing Company’s Cranberry Orange Radler. It’s nice and light at 4.05% ABV with unfiltered wheat along with cranberry and blood orange juices.
New Belgium Brewing’s La Folie Sour Brown Ale. It’s quite tart, but then you’ll get hints of jam, cherries, and green apple with a note of toffee at the finish. It’s perfect with appetizers.

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Beers with Dinner

Congratulations, as you’re still quite sober for the main event. Make sure you get a beer glass for any of the following beers:

Stillwater Artisanal Ales’s Cellar Door Saison. Beer experts will love its complexity, but it’s still smooth enough even for the pickiest eaters. It goes well with a wide range of dishes, and the highly carbonated drink cleanses your tongue to keep the food tasting fresh and delicious.
Dogfish Head Craft Brewery’s Indian Brown Ale. It’s a truly underrated beer, but you should be able to appreciate it this Thanksgiving. It starts with the malty caramel you get from a Scotch ale, and then it’s mixed with lots of American hops for an insistent bitterness that mixes pine and grapefruit notes.
Deschutes Brewery’s Black Butte Porter. Porters like Black Butte Porter come with a lighter roast that’s wonderfully balanced by a certain level of hop. A porter isn’t like a stout, which is generally a bit more bitter. This porter goes very well with dark meat turkey and other roasted and caramelized goodies. In other words, it seems custom-made for Thanksgiving.

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Beers with Dessert

What’s Thanksgiving without dessert? Also, what’s a Thanksgiving dessert without the right beer? You can answer these philosophical questions (or at least try) with the right beers, such as the following:

Allagash Brewing Company’s Curieux. The Allagash Brewing Company is the most famous brewery in Portland, Maine, and they’ve been making their Curiex since 2004. It’s a very rich brew, and you can get hints of coconut, honey, pear, spice, and apples. There’s also a very slight note of bourbon, along with a bit of vanilla. Basically, you need this beer with your apple pie.
Brewery Ommegang’s Three Philosophers. Yep, it’s a strong beer with 9.7% ABV, but then it’s for dessert after all. Here you get notes of brown sugar with molasses, cherry, raisin, and plum.
Oskar Blues’s Ten Fidy. This imperial stout is released every November, and you get notes of roast, caramel, and rich chocolate that are perfect with dessert!

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John Diep

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Founder, Editor-In-Chief // A native Angeleno. John studied engineering at UCLA; founded Schmoozd, an offline social tech networking event in LA with 30,000 subs; ran a startup accelerator (StartEngine). Worked for several major brands like Toyota, DIRECTV, Hitachi, ICANN, and Raytheon. A mentor at Loyola Marymount University (LMU) Entrepreneur School, Dr. David Choi. And advises a dozen local LA startups building amazing tech in various industries; and invested in some. // Let's Connect: john@lastartups.com