This month New Belgium Brewing Company invites you and your family to hit the slopes at Crystal Mountain in Thompsonville, Mich. to sport fun costumes while scouring the snowy hills for clues.

Craft beer aficionados certainly have plenty of reasons to shake the couch cushions and work overtime come late November and early December, when some of the cult favorites — many of them of the bourbon barrel-aged variety — hit the shelves. Brewery Vivant’s Wizard Burial Ground is certainly one to look for. 

I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream. Not just your average ice cream though — ice cream beer. What does beer and ice cream have to do with protecting our winters, you ask? Read on.

Brewers have used the season as a reason for making holiday-themed craft beers, which simply serve to distract drinkers from the many dozens of styles out there that are just so much better tasting (at least in this writer’s opinion). Regardless of our predilections for other styles, we decided to set aside our War on Christmas Beers for a day to see how they stacked up.