We brought our two top beer bracket finishers to Josh’s family Christmas party, where we managed to convince 10 of his relatives to taste the Great Lakes Christmas Ale and Thirsty Dog 12 Dogs in little dixie cups in a blind face off.  We asked only one question: which cup of beer do you like better, the blue or the green?

Word on the street is that Thirsty Dog’s brewer uses the original Great Lakes Christmas Ale recipe for the 12 Dogs, but I leave it to you to look that up and verify it.  This is just a blog, not a beer Wiki.  They are very similar beers, though, so I’ll give some credit to the claim.

The title may have clued you in on the results: Great Lakes won 7 to 3.

I like the face-off format, though the bracket was cumbersome and seems to have encouraged me to drink more Christmas beer than intended this year.  We may limit the face-off to one round only, at least until we have a big crowd around to help with the drinking and judging!

Christmas Ale Poster (source: Drinkingcraft.com)