Advent Calendars and Whisky Tasting...

Since we knew that we’d be stuck at home for the month of December, it didn’t take much for Reinhardt and Inga to talk us into ordering two beer advent calendars so that we could virtually drink some interesting beers together along with Simon, a hash friend in Wiesbaden. Knowing that we’d be drinking a large variety of beers inspired me to finally download Untappd, an app to track beers, which Reinhardt and Inga have been using for years. Beery Christmas included 24 craft beers from around the world. Each day we opened one circle in the box and went online for info about the beer and recommended food pairings. Many of the pairings didn’t work for us as they were meat or foods we didn’t have in the house (and we didn’t want to make extra trips to the supermarket due to COVID), but it was fun when it did work. Most surprising was that I’ve discovered that I really like dessert beers.  

The other advent calendar that they convinced us to buy was the Craft Beer Run Christmas Challenge which alternated 12 Dutch craft beers with 12 run challenges. While we were very good about sharing one of those beers every other day, we weren’t as diligent about doing the runs. 

Jim brought us our third advent calendar... 

…featuring 24 homemade small bags filled with candy plus an adorable mask ornament designed and made by Nina. 

Jim wanted to take us out to dinner to thank us for putting up with him for another week, but restaurants were still closed so we did Thai takeout instead. Afterwards we did an impromptu whisky tasting.

Needless to say, we all agreed that the cheap Dutch Scotchman whisky was not the winner.