OK I give up, I surrender, I capitulate.

Like a lot of my ideas it seemed a good one at the time. A different Christmas beer every day from December 1st to the big day. It started off well with a malty monster from Shepherd Neame but things quickly took a turn for the worse, with a succession of  industrial ‘old-style’ Swedish Christmas beers that bored my tastebuds into submission.

There were some highlights along the way of course, some welcome presents in a pile of January sale returns, such as Nils Oscar’s Julöl, a belter from Jämtlands and an unexpected cracker from Wisby.

But I feel I’m in danger of turning Scrooge and skipping Christmas altogether if I have to open another bottle of Vienna-style sickly sweet and utterly forgettable beer.

So I won’t.

Instead last night I tried two completely different beers that don’t have a single snowy scene on the front label or a red-nosed reindeer between them. One’s a classy ‘live’ Italian beer from a brewery I can’t seem to find out anything about and the other is a ’smoother-than-glass’ porter brewed by a Swedish micro (with a bit of help from their friends at Wicked Wine) that claims to be rocket fuel but is in fact a deliciously balanced porter.

Both deserve full reviews and both will get them after I’ve opened all my presents. Until then I’m posting them both here (my 100th post!!!) as a Dagens Dubbel for Day 23 of BeerSweden’s Advent Beer Calendar.

I’m sure you’ve got plenty of wrapping and last minute preparations so I’ll sign off for now. Be sure to check back tomorrow to see what I’m drinking on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Boxing Day. I promise they’ll be fantastic beers that I’ve been waiting a long time to open…….