Plenty of holidays throughout the year are associated with specific kinds of booze. St. Patrick’s Day is synonymous with Irish stouts, Cinco de Mayo is all about tequila, and New Year’s Eve just doesn’t seem festive without Champagne—or at least some kind of sparkling wine. What else are you going to ring in the new year with, right? Well, if we had our druthers, we’d drink bubbly beers instead.
While nobody will tell you to put down your barrel-aged imperial stout during Auld Lang Syne, there are definitely more Champagne-adjacent beer choices available that tick all the New Year’s Eve boxes: Saisons, brut IPAs, sour beers, and many other styles are well-suited as a replacement for sparkling wine. Here are 15 crisp, effervescent brews to drink this New Year’s Eve instead of the usual bubbly.
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1. Lindemans Old Gueuze Cuvée René
Lindermans calls this wild-fermented wheat beer made with aged hops the “queen of gueuzes” and “one of the jewels of our brewery.” Golden in color, this beer is said to be reminiscent of a bubbly dry vermouth. Named the World’s Best Gueuze at the 2022 World Beer Awards, you might want to pick up two bottles—one to drink now and another to cellar for a few years.
Fair Isle combines old and new with aplomb. The brewery took a long-matured beer that had been aged in oak casks with peaches and blended it with a fresh saison. The end product has a drier finish and less tartness, while still maintaining the stone fruit flavor and depth.
This bourbon barrel-aged English-style Old Ale took home a silver at this year’s Great American Beer Festival. Made with a portion of all the brewery’s anniversary ales (there have been 14), Ivoire has notes of toffee and vanilla that balance against flavors of dark fruit and oak in this blend.
Boulevard calls this American saison the “8.5% wonder of the world.” The brewery’s North American twist on the Belgian style offers aromas of sweet fruit and yeast with a palate-pleasing combination of banana, clove, and yeast.
Longmont, Colorado’s Primitive just released a new “super mature” beer. The multi-year aging process gives the beer “notes of toasted orange peel, burnt caramel, and musky oak cellar.” In addition, the brewery says this special beer is “Champagne-like” making it perfect to pop open at midnight.
This 4.5 percent highly sessionable IPA is brewed with Sbro, CTZ, and Mandarina hops. This is a crisp, refreshing IPA loaded with ripe tropical fruits and tart, sweet citrus flavors that are intentionally more effervescent than most IPAs.
Belgian brewers know a thing or two about crafting wine-like, heavily fermented beers. Saison Dupont is a favorite for being yeasty, sweet, tart, and trademarked by flavors of funky citrus, fruit esters, and lemongrass. The finish is dry, sparkling, and slightly bitter.
With a name like The Fizz, you can assume what you’re getting with this 4.7 percent pilsner. Made solely with Colorado-sourced ingredients, it’s known for its clean, thirst-quenching, crushable flavor led by notes of pineapple, tropical fruit, and ripe grapefruit. An herbal—almost floral—hop backbone ties everything together nicely.
[$12.99 for a four-pack of 16-ounce cans; buyomfbeer.com]
The Lost Abbey Tiny Bubbles Original Brut Ale might be the closest beer will ever come to being a straight-up sparkling wine. That’s because this ale, brewed with sea salt and Brettanomyces, is over-the-top fizzy, crisp, clean, and filled with hints of tart citrus, tropical fruits, and dry salinity that reminds you you’re drinking something unique and special.
Allagash is known for its envelope-pushing beers. Its Two Lights is no different. This mash-up of a beer and sparkling wine is brewed with sauvignon blanc must and fermented with lager and Champagne yeast. The result is a crisp, dry, fruity beer with notes of ripe peach, grape juice, and tangy hops.
Another music-centric beer, one sip of Super Kriek will have you belting out Rick James. It’s a blend of Flemish oud Bruin ale and Belgian kriek ale with cherries. It’s funky and tart with flavors of sour cherries, fruit esters, and oaky wood.
Not only does this beer come in one of the classiest, foil-covered bottles of all time, it’s also won countless awards over the years. A tribute to the 16th-century French explorers who founded the Canadian province (aka “The end of the world”), this Belgian-style ale carries notable flavors of fruit esters, banana, cloves, and wintry spices.
Sixpoint also makes a Brut version—but we love a good hazy IPA, so we’ll opt for this instead. The New England-style IPA is bubblier and more effervescent than most hazy IPAs. It’s dominated by flavors of tropical fruit; citrus zest; and has a dry, crisp, slightly hoppy finish.
One of the biggest appeals of Rodenbach Grand Cru is the large, Champagne-like bottle. Flanders red ale ages for more than two years in large oak foeders, resulting in a tart, dry, robust beer with notes of fruit esters, oaky wood, and a wine-like finish.
This 7.5 percent Belgian-style farmhouse ale was brewed with Amarillo hops, Pilsner malts, and torrified (heated or roasted) wheat. It’s also aged in wine barrels with whole peaches. The result is a slightly tart, yeasty beer filled with hints of fruit esters, ripe peaches, and slight spices. It’s crisp, tart, and will definitely ramp up your New Year’s Eve celebration.
