Author: Nick Anderson

Editor’s Note: This sponsored column is written by Nick Anderson, beermonger at Arrowine (4508 Lee Highway).

I don’t know how to properly start this week’s column. I have a habit when I don’t know how to start something I’m writing — I simply start writing and see if something comes to me. There’s every chance in the world you’ll never see these words because in a few minutes I’ll know exactly the right phrase or joke to start this column off with, and I’ll simply cut this whole paragraph out and replace it.

Editor’s Note: This sponsored column is written by Nick Anderson, beermonger at Arrowine (4508 Lee Highway).

Saving me from finding one more angle for a Christmas-themed column, I realized that the 26th will mark the last “Your Beermonger” of 2014 — which means it’s once again time for my little-anticipated, completely unscientific Beers of the Year column.

Editor’s Note: This sponsored column is written by Nick Anderson, beermonger at Arrowine (4508 Lee Highway).

At this point in the season, we’ve all been inundated with “What to Get the __ Fan in Your Life” articles. There’s nothing wrong with that; I enjoy them — hell, I wrote one for this site last year (for Black Friday).

Editor’s Note: This sponsored column is written by Nick Anderson, beermonger at Arrowine (4508 Lee Highway).

This week I did something I had never done before over my near-20 years of beer geekery: I signed up for a membership in a brewery’s reserve society. The idea of these ‘societies’ or ‘clubs’ is becoming more popular every year, but they aren’t without their detractors. As always, only you can determine what is worth spending your consumer dollar on, but here’s a fairly short rundown of what these memberships have to offer, why some folks don’t like them, and why I decided to finally take the plunge with one.

Editor’s Note: This sponsored column is written by Nick Anderson, beermonger at Arrowine (4508 Lee Highway).

The past few weeks have been great for Virginia Sour Ale fans: not only were Rodenbach and Rodenbach Grand Cru re-introduced to our state, but variants we’d never seen before became available to us as well.

Editor’s Note: This sponsored column is written by Nick Anderson, beermonger at Arrowine (4508 Lee Highway).

By now, we’re in various stages of recovery from our food comas — and I hope everyone out there had a Happy Thanksgiving.

Editor’s Note: This sponsored column is written by Nick Anderson, beermonger at Arrowine (4508 Lee Highway).

Thanksgiving is simultaneously the most- and least-forgiving meal of the year for beverage pairing: gauging the sweetness levels of the dishes being served along with the palate preferences of the diners can be the difference between everyone having a rollicking good time, and being berated as a “snob” because everything you have to drink is “too dry” (I’m not reliving any Thanksgiving traumas here, I swear).

Editor’s Note: This sponsored column is written by Nick Anderson, beermonger at Arrowine (4508 Lee Highway).

There were two beer releases beer geeks like me were buzzing about this week. The first was the arrival of Hardywood Gingerbread Stout in Northern Virginia for the first time, followed (about three and a half hours later at Arrowine at least) by the departure of Hardywood Gingerbread Stout. The good news is that more will be rolling out over the next couple of weeks, so if you missed out this week you haven’t missed out completely.

Editor’s Note: This sponsored column is written by Nick Anderson, beermonger at Arrowine (4508 Lee Highway).

Don’t let the title fool you, I’m basically passing along some tasting notes this week, but there is a bit of a theme in that all of these have been working for me as we veer between unseasonably warm and full-on winter. The good news is there are a lot of great new options out there, along with some returning seasonal favorites. Here are some standouts:

Editor’s Note: This sponsored column is written by Nick Anderson, beermonger at Arrowine (4508 Lee Highway).

I picked a hell of a day to get food poisoning this week — right before my birthday. Not that I’m a big birthday guy, mind you: I try to avoid people finding out about it, keep things low-key. Still, I was determined to open a couple special beers in my “cellar” (aka my basement fridge) and as your intrepid Beermonger felt a responsibility to do so. At least that’s what I told myself.

Editor’s Note: This sponsored column is written by Nick Anderson, beermonger at Arrowine (4508 Lee Highway).

Before we get into it today, some notes: