It’s Christmas Eve Eve! I think it’s about time to get those recipes in order. Here are some of our family traditions and my recommendations for some epic meals for the day!
Savory Christmas Bread Pudding – aka Eggs Portugal. We’ve had this every year as far back as I can remember, and I can’t imagine a Christmas without it! Serve it with fresh apple cider and coffee, and you’re good to go!
Eggnog Spiked Christmas Kettle Corn – in between second, third and fourth helpings of the bread pudding, this is an easy and delicious go-to snack to keep up the blood sugar!
Molasses Spiked Sirups Kager – these are a slightly healthier version of a family recipe, and can be made vegan-friendly!
Vanilla Porter Chocolate Covered Cherry Cookies – wonderfully rich chocolate cookies with a burst of sweetness from the maraschino cherries and a boozy frosting to top it off.
Wilted Kale and Quinoa Salad with Maple-Glazed Pecans – if you need a break from the sugar, this is a wonderful appetizer/side dish/meal to help you feel just a tad better before sitting down for the Christmas ham (or fifth helping of Savory Christmas Bread Pudding in my case).
Caramel Pecan Caffetini – finish the long day with a decadent chocolate-coffee martini, drizzled with salted caramel sauce. Make sure you’ve changed back into fuzzy pajama pants for this if you got dressed for some strange reason during the day.
Happy cooking!
Do you have any traditional foods or family recipes you make every year for Christmas?
It snowed on Christmas Eve! I set a beer outside to let it chill and when I came back out, it was covered in a good half inch of this beautiful white stuff!
Bare feet in the snow on Christmas morning. I don’t recommend it.
Delicate crystals atop the table.
I snapped a few pictures before rushing inside to escape the 3 degree weather. The rest of the day was spent roasting in front of the fireplace.
My Christmas gift from my bro and his wife! He made this himself the night before. Quite awesome, if I do say so myself!
It also came with this – unfortunately I didn’t have enough time to brew out there with all of the brewery tours we had lined up, but I’m creating a recipe at this moment for my next visit!
IPA tastings. I am head over heels in love with Myrcenary and Mountain Standard by 
My favorite nephew got to spend the day with us. Nothing like having the whole family there for Christmas!
A beautiful beer list! I’ve only had one or two of Avery’s brews before, but as much as I wanted to try them all, the altitude was still making me a cheap date (read: tipsy after a taster), so I stuck with a taster of Out of Bounds Stout and…
MEPHISTOPHELES’. 16.2%ABV. I couldn’t NOT try that!
Out of Bounds on the left, Mephistopheles’ on the right. The Mephistopheles’ was full of rich bourbon flavors, thick roasted coffee, spicy dried fruits and bitter dark chocolate powder. We may or may not have taken a 12oz bottle home. And by may or may not, I obviously mean we did.
Jon Cross was kind enough to give us a tour of their 40bbl system. Avery is prepping to move up to a 120bbl system over in Gunbarrel in the upcoming year!
Perhaps they’ll allow diving in the new, gigantic mash tun. We visited two other breweries after, neither with beer worth talking about, and the next day we went to one of my old favorites.
Oh, 
After an hour exploring the place, we headed over to 
It was a much longer tour than the last time I took it – over three years ago. They’ve built many expansions since and turned a half hour tour into ninety wonderful minutes!
Brewhouse 1.
Not too much heavy lifting going on here except on the brain.
We moved upstairs and drooled over the tanks, checking out each progression from mashing all the way to the rolling boil they had going on. You couldn’t smell anything inside, but the air outside smelled lusciously of hop resin being released from the grips of its pellets.
The barrel aging room was next. Epic. I don’t know how many oak foeders they had in there, but I could’ve wandered for hours and been content.
We got many, MANY samples throughout the tour, but this was my favorite. I hated La Folie the first time I tried it three years ago on the same tour, but now it’s pure adoration. Sours have won me over.
The next part of the tour took us outside past the gigantic bright tanks and into a relatively new building where the bottling and canning line are.
Capturing the deliciousness happens in here!
The brewery is covered in random art. I’d love to see this chandelier lit up at night!
8.5bbl system. They measure everything here in hectoliters. I spent a lot of the tour on my phone doing conversions from hectoliters to barrels. I’m cool like that.
Quite a colorful pilot room.
This system has one of the best views of the brewery. Look at all the pretty foeders!
Poor neglected Sputnik was empty. There were four fermentors that were full of experimentals. I spotted a stout, a dark set for release in fall of 2013, a light set also releasing in 2013 and a collaboration. I can’t get into any more detail than that – don’t want to give away the secrets!
Fire! I shot this thing once and said no more. Not a fan of fire in my face and a kick that almost makes me drop the gun on top of my head.
Aaand an assault rifle rental from my bro. Kinda like a BB gun with laser sights.
A belated Happy New Year to you all!
“, viewings of “
” and the prepping of foods for Christmas Day. It’s been a tradition in our family, since before I was born, to have Eggs Portugal on Christmas morning. This savory bread pudding has tender pieces of sausage, strings of cheddar cheese, delicate mushrooms and nutty whole wheat bread.
