Coming Home Holiday Ale
This Belgian-style Quadrupel ale is full-bodied and robust, boldly showcasing flavors of sweet dried fruits delivered on a smooth, velvety palate. Specialty malts and roasted barley give this beer a sweet malty aroma that complements its complex fruitiness. Brewed in the Belgian tradition with dark candi sugar and a Trappist ale yeast, Coming Home Holiday Ale is rich and flavorful, meant to be shared and savored among friends.
At 10% alcohol by volume, our Quad pours a deep garnet color with a dense, pillowy head. Aromas are sweet and rummy, reminding us of holiday treats. Subtle hop flavor gives enough bitterness to balance the brown sugar and caramel flavors, mingling with figs, raisins, and dates. A robust beer on its own, this deceptively drinkable ale complements gamey meats, fruitcake, or an after-dinner cigar.
Grand Teton’s Cellar Reserve beers are now released in beautiful 750 ml bottles with pry-off crowns. We switched from our signature 1 liter flip-top bottles because the crown provides the best quality seal available, protecting the beer from oxygen and maintaining its carbonation level. In addition, the new bottles are much lighter than our previous bottles, providing significant energy savings in their manufacture and transportation. Without the wire and ceramic stopper, our new bottles are easier to recycle. Finally, the new bottle is less expensive, and we’ve passed every bit of our cost savings on to the consumer.
In conjunction with the Teton Arts Council, Grand Teton Brewing Co. held “The Art of Beer” contest in the fall of 2009 to select artwork for the 2010 Cellar Reserve bottles. Local artist Kelly Sullivan’s moving depiction of a cowboy leading his horses was chosen to represent the contest’s theme of “Life in the Tetons” for the winter and holiday seasons on the Coming Home label. To see all the contest winners, please visit the Teton Arts Council website.
Kelly Sullivan is best known for her collaborative FingerSmear paintings created to commemorate events across the country, and her career-long series of traditional works on canvas depicting the human condition. To see more of Kelly’s work, please visit her website at sullistudios.com.
The Cellar Reserve series of beers are unique, different even from other craft beers. Grand Teton’s Cellar Reserves are brewed with specialty hops and malts and unique strains of yeast. Most ales and lagers are produced in 2-4 weeks. However, 3 to 8 months are spent on each of the Cellar Reserve specialty brews. They are also bottle-conditioned, which produces natural carbonation that will blend and smooth the flavors with time. Proper aging of these bottles creates beers to be cherished. Our Cellar Master provides regular tasting notes and aging updates on his web page, Notes from Underground.