Calling this a preview is kind of a misnomer. The full list of beers dropped today and contains few surprises. For the remaining surprises, I have written up a lot of softly researched speculation.
I first entered the world of Aldi Advent Calendars last year, I must admit, I've become addicted. I don’t know if it is the slow rolling of information or the false scarcity, but I am ravenous for any and all information related to the Aldi Advent Calendars. Aldi first teased the 2021 calendars on Sept 17th. And when I say teased, I mean it; they literally only announced that the wine and the cheese calendars would be reappearing. Fast forward four agonizing weeks and Aldi updates their website with a full list of products, including the one I am most interested in: Beer Advent Calendar. Every article, every site, every post I could get my hands on had the same information: 24 beers in a box that was designed to look like an ugly Christmas sweater. I went deep into the recesses of the internet and could not find any information on specifics.
So here we are, one week out from the November 3rd drop, and I am finally seeing the list of beers included and my excitement has waned to mixed emotions. I’m writing this post to explore my grief and in doing so I will discuss the beers in the calendar. If you think these are spoilers, stop reading right here.
What we know:
Per the Aldi website, there are 24 beers in this package (no, duh). 17 of them are 11.2 oz while the remaining 7 are 12 oz. This screams that 17 are European made while the remaining 7 are American in origin. Per the Aldi website, the 24 beers are as follows:
-
Wernesgruner German Pilsner, 4.9% ABV
- White Tide Belgian White Ale, 5% ABV
- Brens Lager, 5% ABV
- Kristoffel Blonde Ale, 6%
- Kristoffel White Ale, 5%
- Kristoffel Dark Ale, 6%
- O'Shea's Irish Lager, 4.4% ABV
- O'Shea's Hoppy Lager, 4.2% ABV
- O'Shea's Celtic Wheat Beer, 4.3% ABV
- O'Shea's Irish Red Ale, 4.3% ABV
- O'Shea's Irish Stout, 4.5% ABV
- O'Shea's IPA, 6% ABV
- O'Shea's Pale Ale, 4.8% ABV
- Deadly Brewing Amber Ale, 4.8% ABV
- Deadly Brewing East Coast IPA, 6% ABV
- Deadly Brewing Grapefruit IPA, 5% ABV
- Deadly Brewing Hazy IPA, 5% ABV
- Blonde Ale, 4.5% ABV
- Bock,4.5% ABV
- Cherry Kolsch, 4.5% ABV
- Key Lime Sour, 4.5% ABV
- Session IPA, 4.5% ABV
- Dry Hopped Sour Ale, 5.2% ABV
- Winter Lager, 5.6% ABV
The first 13 beers on this list are the exact same beers from last year's calendar (full 2020 review here). The Wernesgruner, White Tide, and Brens lager are available at my Aldi year-round and are suitable replacements for their name brand counterparts. The picture above is the first 3 days of the 2020 calendar, 2 of these beers appear again in 2021. I found most of the O’Shea’s beers to be underwhelming, with the exception of the Irish Stout which is thankfully returning. Also thankfully, they ditched the Winter Ale which was the worst beer in the pack last year.