For today’s Advent been pick I’ve selected an Oregon brewery that hasn’t been featured on the calendar before: Heater Allen Brewing, located in McMinnville. Established in 2007, Heater Allen initially focuses exclusively on German and Czech style lagers, the only Oregon brewery at the time to do so. These days there are several ales (in the German style, of course!) but the holiday beer is a Baltic-style porter: Sandy Paws.

When Rick started the idea for the brewery he was living at the beach and when trying to come up with a name for the Holiday beer he pictured his dog coming back from the beach with her paws covered in sand, thus the name Sandy Paws was born. Sandy Paws is a Baltic Porter, rich and malty with slightly spicy notes. This beer can be consumed now or is one of our beers that can be aged and is usually better after a year. The TTB decided to not allow us to use the term “Baltic Porter” on our label, so although the beer is done in the style of Baltic Porter the label says “Holiday Lager.” Every year a new dog (or cat) graces the label, we raffle off the label picture with raffle ticket proceeds going to the McMinnville Education Foundation. Sandy Paws is released at the beginning of November.

I like that the name is an inspired play on “Santa Claus” and a Baltic porter is a nice style for a Christmas beer. This year’s edition is 7.2% alcohol by volume, and there are two labels gracing the bottles:

This year we have two different labels, each with a different dog; Lottie, a sheep-doodle, graces one of the labels and Noci, a terrier, is on the other.

Find Heater Allen Sandy Paws on:

• Untappd
• BeerAdvocate
• RateBeer
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