From Fresh, The West Australian, Dec 18

In this season of personal indulgences, mine is to drink the hoppiest ales available. And Meantime India Pale Ale (7.5 per cent), in its 750ml wired-cork champagne bottle, has leapt into my top 10 as the perfect example of this old English style.

Renowned Maris Otter malt and Fuggle and Goldings hops by the bucketful assail the nostrils and taste buds with bitter, sweet, fruity hoppiness and orange marmalade and ginger notes. It’s so huge on flavour you sense it’s sure to expand even further with cellaring – three years is suggested on the bottle.

Meantime brewery sited in Greenwich – where else? – is lauded in England and worldwide. Founder and brewer Alastair Hook, who’s had experience in Bavaria, is assiduous in compiling all his beer styles. For instance, he sources the Arabica beans for world champion Meantime Coffee Porter (6 per cent) from a Rwanda co-operative under the Fairtrade scheme. Think espresso-mocha combining coffee bitterness and vanilla sweetness.

For Meantime Vienna Style Amber Lager (4.9 per cent), Mr Hook sourced traditional regional Perle and Spalter hops which, added to the mash of coloured malts, produce a full fruity caramel aroma, a smooth complex malt character and a long crisp clean finish to the deep-copper hued beer. Slow fermented and cold matured for the correct length of time, this lager harks back to a previous age of fine brewing. It comes in a cute 330ml champagne bottle.

Meantime London Porter (6.5 per cent) re-creates the dark, sweetish popular beer of the 18th century adhering to a recipe that includes seven different malts and old-fashioned Fuggles hops. Conditioned in 750ml champagne bottles, it will develop over three years. Currently it offers a light roast malt and a hint of soft cheese rind on the nose, burnt caramel then smoky, dry maltiness in the mouth and a sharpish back-of-the-throat finish.

Meantime Chocolate (6.5 per cent), made with dark malts and dark bitter chocolate, drinks rich, bitter, silky and warming. The dessert or digestif porter also suits casseroles, stews and spicy dishes.

Meantime Wheat (5 per cent) derives floral, banana and spicy aroma with lemon zest and orange vanilla from Bavarian yeast and 60 per cent wheat malt. Superbly balanced and smooth yet refreshing.

These and other Meantime beers are sold in WA at the International Beer Shop, West Leederville, and progressive Cellarbrations stores.

Tradition is a funny thing when it comes to beer drinking. Christmas brews follow the British and European model, inducing a warm glow against the chill of northern hemisphere winters. Yet Christmas down under comes in summer, turning tradition upside down.

Tanglehead’s first Christmas Ale in 2006 was aptly described as fruitcake in a bottle. The 2008 Christmas Ale, brewed in July to develop properly for the season, is now in International Beer Shop; The Freo Doctor; Cellarbrations at Carlisle; the Beer Store, Morley; The Royal George bottleshop and Tanglehead brewpub in Albany, at $18 per 750ml champagne-style bottle.

“We found that previous batches really started to develop their flavours after about six months and those lucky enough to have held a bottle or two back after Christmas have been rewarded,” Tanglehead brewer Allan Kelly said this month, shortly before leaving the Albany brewpub he founded.

Last year’s 7. 5 per cent Christmas Ale is ripe for drinking now – spicy and raisiny and fruity.

Murray’s Craft Brewing’s Anniversary Ale is also in time for Christmas, similarly conditioned in 750ml bottles. This year’s US-style barley-wheat strong brew from NSW is deliberately “infected” with wild yeast called brettanomyces, an adventurous ploy previously used by WA’s Feral. Murray’s matured the ale in Shiraz oak casks and brewer Shawn Sherlock said: “We still don’t know exactly where the final profile of this beer will end up – which make life very exciting.”

Dedicated Christmas labels enhance the festive mood and heading a raft of imports is Chouffe N’ice, with the Belgian brewery’s signature gnomes disguised as Santas on the 750ml bottle. It’s a whopping 10 per cent alcohol brown ale, spicy and herbal with thyme and orange zest and fine hop balance.

Another Belgian 10 per cent favourite, Delirium Christmas, comes with its pink elephant dressed for the occasion. It’s a triple-fermented golden ale full of candy sugar and toffee delights.

Aromatic Tangerlo Christmas blond abbey ale from Dutch brewer Haacht is a 7 per cent bottle-conditioned fruit and vanilla beer. The label on Schelder brewery’s Kerst (or Christmas) Bier depicts an odd couple of semi-naked Santas on a sleigh waving bottles of the 9.5 per cent creamy amber ale, which tastes like a nutty trifle. The beer bearing the most traditional snow scene is simply called Christmas, a mahogany-hued, strong (7.5 per cent), malty ale ideal to accompany smoked ham.

Finally, showing not only ales make festive drinking, the impeccable Weihenstephan Festbier (5.8 per cent) strong Bavarian helles - complex, grassy, crisp and very long - earns lager a place at the Christmas table.

How many people you know have proper beer glasses in the house? A knacky gift idea is a set of glasses that hold the foam of a decent packaged beer. Appropriately called Headmaster, the glasses – with bases and sides clevery scored to capture the CO2 for slow release – are available in four-packs at David Jones, $29.95 for a boxed set of four.

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