Christmas brew is not a new invention, but dates several hundred years back in history, where people in the countryside brewed a particularly good beer at Christmas time to match the rich food that they indulged themselves with at this time of year. Over the years, this special beer developed into the sweet Christmas brew that was - and still is - served with rice porridge.
Strong seasonal beers become a tradition In 1905, Carlsberg launched a special, high-alcohol Easter brew, and thus, the first strong seasonal beer in Denmark was a reality. When the new beer became a success, several other breweries followed suit. In 1958, the now closed brewery Carlsminde introduced the first strong Christmas brew in Denmark. It had an alcohol content of 7.6, and in order to make it easier for the customers to differentiate the new strong beers from the traditional beers, they called the new type of beer ”brew”. Many other Christmas brews have been launched since then, With Tuborg's christmas brew, also referred to as ”snebajeren” (snow beer), as the most well-known. It has the strength of a normal strong beer with an alcohol content of 5.6.
Even though ”seasonal brews” have become common in Denmark and the rest of Scandinavia, they are strangely enough an almost unknown phenomenon in the rest of the world.
The distinctive feature of the Christmas brew Danish Christmas brew is usually brewed with large amount of dark - often caramelised - malt and hops, and often, English liquorice is also added to the brew. By adding particularly large amounts of the various ingredients, the dark colour, the strong taste and not least the high alcohol content that are characteristic of Danish Christmas brew are achieved. – Another distinctive feature of Danish seasonal brew is the often very colourful labels of the bottles, which creatively attempt to illustrate the current festive season.
The release of the Christmas brew is a national event
The day where the Christmas brew becomes available is also called ”J day” (J for Jul, the Danish word for Christmas). It is always on the first Friday of November, and the official release takes place at exactly 08.59 PM, where many pubs and bars around Denmark have a special celebration because of the event. "J day" used to be on the second Wednesday of November, but upon request from a large number of business schools, it was decided to move the day, as many young people did not show up for classes the day after the release.