The day is almost upon us. The day we celebrate the “first harvest” by gorging ourselves with insane amounts of questionably healthy food, nap, watch college football, and maybe talk to a relative here and there at times when a fork isn’t in our mouths or no one’s in the Red Zone. Maybe you play with the canned cranberry sauce and question its jiggly, adhesive-like properties. Perhaps you ponder the shelflife of dried onions and whether or not they make a good addition to your 2012 Impending Doom underground shelter. Either way… Hooray Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving is ingrained in our heads from grade school by making crayon ”hand turkeys” and dressing as “Pilgrims” (not really a correct term, by the way) wearing silly hats made out of construction paper. A personal favorite was the construction of the buckle on the boys’ hat—layering the crap out of that paper with gooey white Elmer’s squooshing its way all over the place, even using foil for the buckle—because dammit, you were going to have the baddest hat in the entire 6-year-old Pilgrim Mafia. Throw on grandma’s kitchen apron, and magically, you’re a “Pilgrim.” Brown garments required under the apron, of course. White tights (if you’re a girl) and black shoes for everyone. Let’s all make cornucopias!

So much about this holiday is wrong and yet, we’re foodies, so we kinda like it. Americans like to eat and any day that’s like a “free calorie/fat pass” should be celebrated, right? In the last years, we’ve shed the easy-recipe table and started creating some of our own annual food traditions, like the cranberry/marmalade sauce and a delectable pumpkin cheese cake. This is perhaps the first year that Bruisin’ Ales is celebrating without family or friends, alone at the homestead, putting our epicurean skills to the test, skipping the wine and having a bounty of beer with which to cook and drink.

Here are some suggestions for your holiday table (or Laz-y-Boy), linked to a description of the rating/style on BeerAdvocate. You can have some of the best beers at your holiday table for less than a mid-range bottle of wine. Cheers!

AVERY Old Jubilation Ale*
BARBAR Winterbok*
BELL’S Expedition Stout*
BINCHOISE Reserve
DE DOLLE Arabier
DE REGENBOOG t’Smisje Kerst*
DIEU DU CIEL Route des Espices (Spice Route)
DOGFISH HEAD Palo Santo Marron*
DUPONT Avec le Bons Voeux*
GREAT DIVIDE Hibernation Ale*
GREEN FLASH Le Freak*
KULMBACHER EKU-28
MEANTIME London Porter
MONCHSHOF Kellerbrau
NEW HOLLAND Poet Oatmeal Stout
NØRREBRO Old Odense*
ØLFABRIKKEN Jule Ale*
RIDGEWAY Criminally Bad Elf*
ROGUE Hazelnut Brown Nectar
SALOPIAN Entire Butt English Porter
SAMUEL ADAMS Chocolate Bock*
SCHMALTZ He’Brew Origin Pomegranate Ale
SCHNEIDER Aventinus
SCHNEIDER Aventinus 2004 Vintage Wrap*
SCHWELMER Weizen
SIERRA NEVADA Celebration Ale*
SINEBRYCHOFF Baltic Porter
SMUTTYNOSE Winter Ale*
STONE BREWING Smoked Porter
SWEETWATER Festive Ale*
TRAQUAIR Jacobite Ale
UERIGE Doppelsticke
URTHEL Samaranth
WEYERBACHER Autumnfest*

Finally, and completed unrelated, DRAFT is buying a beer this week for Axl Rose for the release of Chinese Democracy. Rolling Stone gives it a 4-star rating. (Oh, and RS, if you’re reading this, we hate your new small print format. It kinda sucks.)

[Image: Fuffernutter.com]