On the Thursday before Christmas we generally tie a few on at the bar in my house. While the ritual of Thursday night drinks usually attracts a varied and revolving cast of ladies and miscreants the Christmas edition tends to get friends who wouldn’t usually come along. This year due to some of the events of the last couple of months I had no draft beer ready so everyone brought along ‘riggers’ (plastic containers) of Emerson’s Bookbinder along which were 
then poured into a keg and served through a beer engine. The communal ‘people built’ keg appealed to my lefty nature.
For the toast I pulled out a 2006 bottle of Emerson’s Taieri George, a 6.2%abv spiced ale that’s released for Easter each year and is often described as tasting like liquid hot cross buns, it could equally be described as tasting like Christmas cake. With a year and a bit of bottle age on, the spices had mellowed and blended perfectly, a fantastic tipple for Christmas.
