I’m sure we’ve all seen the recipes for beer can chicken, but I’m not talking about that — though Ray and I have been more than intrigued with it. And I am by no means discussing Philadelphia Eagles — if you begin that chant, I will kick you … sorry football fans, but you can take it out to the stadium parking lot for tailgating, not here. I’m talking about the day when people overeat, overdrink, and overwatch TV: Thanksgiving.

Don’t get me wrong — it’s always nice to sit down to a special meal with family. This year we’ll be going to my parents’ house just north of Syracuse, and Ray will get to take part in the small and quiet Ward family dinner. My mom has a fairly simple, but tried and true menu lined up, but along with the pumpkin pie Ray is baking, we’ll be bringing something else. Beer.

Before sitting down to write this, I took a few moments to Google “Thanksgiving Beers,” not sure what I would find. There doesn’t appear to be a single “Thanksgiving” beer — though the winter warmers have begun hitting the shelves — but there are a number of articles discussing the pairing of certain styles with certain dishes. Ah-ha! Something useful!

For your own reading pleasure, here are a few that I found to be interesting:

• An article that is extremely recent with good suggestions
• A piece from our friends at BeerAdvocate that is 2 years old, yet still very relevant
• And if you’re really intense, take a look at this beer and food matching chart I found on the BA’s Web site

As for Ray and I, we’ll be bringing some bottles of our tripel up, which should pair nicely with the turkey, as well as another one of our homebrews that we have yet to tell you about. I plan on serving my parents samples, just to show them what we’ve been up to, and then on Sunday we’ll share some of my homebrews with my aunt and uncle, who are very eager to try them — my uncle even asked if we’d be towing a barrel behind the car!

So to all of you: Have a great Thanksgiving, don’t stuff yourself, and crack open a craft beer in lieu of a bottle of wine for the big feast. Enjoy!

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