24. Nut Roll Ale

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23. Festivity Ale

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22. Gingerbread Head

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21. Milk Stout

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20. Prima Pils

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19. Old Man

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18. Holly Jolly Ale

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17. Jolly Traveler Winter Shandy

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16. Elliot Ness

Brewer:  Great Lakes Brewing Company
Location:  Cleveland, Ohio
Style:  Vienna Lager
ABV:  6.2%
BA Rating:  92

Website:  Eliot Ness

15. Anchor Steam Beer

Brewer:  Anchor Brewing Company
Location:  San Francisco, California
Style:  California Common/Steam Beer
ABV:  4.9%
BA Rating:  87

Website:  Anchor Steam Beer

14. Winter Chill Cider

Brewery:  Woodchuck Cidery

Location:  Middlebury, Vermont

Style:  Hard Cider

ABV:  5.0%

BA Rating:  N/A

Website:  Woodchuck Seasonals

13. Mad Elf

Brewery:  Troegs Brewing Company
Location:  Hershey, Pennsylvania
Style:  Belgian Strong Dark Ale
ABV:  11.0%
BA Rating: 87

A staple of the calendar every year.  Brewed with cherry and honey, delicious.

Website:  Troegs Mad Elf

12. Hard Root Beer

Brewery: Sprecher Brewing Company
Location:  Glendale, Wisconsin
Style:  Cream Ale
ABV:  5.0%
BA Rating:  73

Everyone seems to love the hard root beer!  Me too.  I think next year I'll try to find another brewery's version of it.

Website:  Sprecher Hard Root Beer

11. 60 Minute IPA

Brewery:  Dogfish Head Brewery
Location:  Milton, Delaware
Style:  American IPA
ABV:  6.00%
BA Rating: 92

I wanted to put Piercing Pils in the calendar, but it didn't get released to distributors until the week after I put the calendars together...   Maybe next year.  I did get the chance to drink it the other day, and it was pretty delicious.

Website:  60 Minute IPA

10. Young's Double Chocolate Stout

Brewery:  Wells & Young's Ltd.
Location:  Bedford, United Kingdom
Style:  Milk/Sweet Stout
ABV:  5.2%
BA Rating:  90

I normally don't do two beers from the same brewery, but I did some research and Wells and Youngs were separate breweries until 2006.  I thought it would be an interesting look at two parts of the same company

Website: Wells & Young's Ltd.

9. Banana Bread Beer

Brewer: Wells & Young's Ltd
Location:  Bedford, United Kingdom
Style:  Fruit Beer
ABV:  5.2%
BA Rating:  80

Website:  Well's & Young's Ltd.

8. White Lantern

Brewery:  Boston Beer Company
Location:  Jamaica Plain, MA
Style:  Witbier
ABV:  5.5%
BA Rating:  78

Website:  Sam Adams White Lantern

7. Station 33 Firehouse Red

Brewer:  North Country Brewing
Location:  Slippery Rock, PA
Style:  Irish Red Ale
ABV:  5.5%
BA Rating: 78

Gotta represent the local brewery.  If you've never made the trip up to Slippery Rock to drink and eat at the North Country Brewery, you need to get up there.  They also have home-made root beer and cream soda for non-beer drinkers.

Website:  Firehouse Red

6. Celebration Ale

Brewer:  Sierra Nevada Brewing Co,
Location:  Chico, CA
Style:  American IPA
ABV:  6.8%
BA Rating:  93

Wow that's a pretty bottle.  Just looking at this bottle makes me feel happy.  You can see the 2014 at the top means they specially make it each year.  It pours a beautiful red-gold color that's slightly cloudy.   I'm not usually a fan of IPAs, but I tried this one a few years ago and it changed my mind.

Overall, I love this beer.  It is one of the best IPAs I've had and I can't wait to have it again.  I give this one a 5/5, and I will probably include it in the calendar every year.

Website: Sierra Nevada

5. Guinness Blonde

Brewery:  Guinness, Ltd.
Location:  Dublin, Ireland
Style:  American Lager
ABV:  5.0%
BA Rating: 74

New beer from Guinness!  I love Guinness, I'll drink it all night, so when they announced this I was intrigued.  It just came out, so I wanted to put it in the calendar so all of you lovely people could give it a try.

Website:  Guinness Blonde

4. Saugatuck Neapolitan Milk Stout

Brewery:  Saugatuck Brewing Company
Location:  Douglas, Michigan
Style:  Milk/Sweet Stout
ABV:  6.0%
BA Rating:  88

This is one of the beers I am most excited about!  I also had this on draft at my favorite restaurant (Magic Tree), and I had to travel all of the way back up to Boardman, OH to get the cases of it for the calendar.  The Magic Tree's sister restaurant Vintage Estates had just what I needed, and I got a six pack for the road too!

Website:  Neapolitan Milk Stout

3. Franziskaner Weissbier

Brewer:  Spaten-Franziskaner-Brau
Location:  Munich, Germany
Style:  Hefeweizen
ABV:  5.0%
BA Rating:  89

Website (in German?):  Spaten

2. Bell's Winter White

Brewer: Bell's Brewery, Inc.

Location: Kalamazoo, Michigan

Style: Witbier

ABV: 5.0%

BA Rating: 83

This beer got it's spot in the calendar by request from my buddy Bryant.  If you participated last year, you'll remember the homebrew from the 21st, that was Bryant's.  I've got to run out and get some groceries, so I'll have my review up later.  I just wanted to put this up to stop the heckling.

Website: Bell's Brewery, Inc.

1. O'Fallon Pumpkin Beer

Brewer: O'Fallon Brewery
Location: O'Fallon, Missouri
Style: Pumpkin Ale
ABV: 5.6%
Beer Advocate: 83

Welcome to Day 1!  While Thanksgiving is still fresh on everyone's mind (and in everyone's fridge) we can enjoy this brew along with some leftovers!  I specifically chose this pumpkin ale because I had it on draft at my favorite restauant (The Magic Tree).  I always like to put a pumpkin beer in the #1 spot, and when I drank it, I had to have it for the calendar.

Unfortunately, I accidentally froze mine... I wanted to cool it down quickly so I could post about it, and I forgot.  It didn't blow up, I just have to thaw it out.

Website: O'Fallon Beers

Welcome to the Beer Calendar 2014!

Hey everybody!  Welcome to the Beer-Nardo Blog!  You were probably directed here by the slip of paper in the beer calendar you purchased, or that someone who loves you (a lot) gave to you.  I'll be posting a small blurb about each beer-of-the-day, and you all can rate them and post comments about them.  Just so you know, you need to sign in with a Google account to post comments.  Please at least rate them, 1 (bad) - 5 (Spectacular!)  This will let me know how I can improve this experience for next year.

Other social media stuff:

Friend me on Untappd - Mark Bernardo "bernardomp1"

If you post on other social media about the calendar, please use #beernardocalendar

Sorry about posting a bit late, we were in Houston for a wedding. I didn't have my beer or computer, but I had plenty of other beers.  I'll have a couple posts up real soon.

I'd like to thank you all for participating this year.  I had a lot of fun choosing all the beers for the calendar, and assembling them.  A special thanks goes out to my team this year, with their unofficial titles.

Assembly Crew:  Melinda Novak & Jennynovak Bernardo
Delivery Crew:  Tony Bernardo, Karen Bernardo, Dave Novak
"Warehouse":  Dave & Diana Novak

And a very special thank you to Michelle and her crew at Robinson Beer and Beverage.  I got pretty much all of my beer there this year.

ENJOY!