Swilling the best of the holiday beers. 

As a Democrat, I fear I'm going to be crying into my beer a lot this holiday season, so I want the beer into which I cry to be good and strong and life-affirming: Hoppy, but with a cushion of warming, toasted malt—and perhaps, for extra lift, a jovial dash of spices. I'm pleased to report that the beer is out there. Since the renaissance of "craft" brewing in the last two decades, brewers in the United States and other parts of the world have dedicated themselves to concocting strapping, assertive, and deeply idiosyncratic holiday seasonals: "wassails" with mulling spices for mistletoe merriment; roasty, chestnut-hued brown ales for fireside sipping; and hop Godzillas to demonstrate the revivifying powers of bitterness. These are not beers to be stewed over in solitude but to share with lovers, friends, co-workers—even Republicans.

Because so many holiday brews can overwhelm both the palate and the liver, I decided it would be a good idea to spread my tasting over several evenings. Then I thought: nahhhh. And so my colleagues and I gathered one stormy December night to savor 40 seasonal beers from the Pacific Northwest, the Northeast, California, the Mid-Atlantic, Belgium, England—anywhere we could track them down. (We left out the superheavy brews known as "barleywines" to keep from re-enacting the climax of The Lost Weekend.) The informal panel included Jim Leff, passionate pooh-bah of chowhound.com; Rolling Stone contributor and esteemed rock historian Fred Goodman; architect Mark Pennell; and Slate associate editor Jodi Kantor. Leff played Santa Claus and brought barbecue from Pearson's, maybe the Northeast's best rib shack. It was one of the few meals that could hold its own against so many brontosaurian brews.

Our methodology was a tad whimsical, which is to say that it wouldn't be sanctioned in official beer-judging circles. (But who wants to move in official beer-judging circles?) Professional tasters set up troughs into which they deliver the contents of their glasses and, on occasion, their mouths, but I've never really fathomed how beer judges can confine themselves to a few sissy sips and throw the rest away. A beer reveals itself in progressive tastes, as the finish of the last gulp mingles on the palate with the aroma of the next, and the brew can be savored at once in its coming and going. This is a lyrical way of saying that I didn't do a lot of pouring out, which might be why my notes on the last few beers are difficult to make sense of but seem to revolve around Catherine Zeta-Jones.

Before I disclose the results, it would be useful to establish some unofficial categories of holiday or winter beers, a few of which overlap:

Hop Monsters. These are the beers with a brawny, roaring bitterness—an amplified version of an already loud style that has flourished in the West and Pacific Northwest.

Wassails. Think mulling spices: nutmeg, clove, allspice, cinnamon, and even weirder stuff like juniper berries or pine needles.

Enhanced Brown Ales. These are ales in which the grain has been roasted, imparting a nutty, sometimes chocolaty, occasionally burnt-caramelly aroma and flavor. Enhanced Browns might also be well-hopped and feature spices.

Mighty Stouts. Some breweries make stouts only in the winter months and put a lot of character (and alcohol) into them. The alcohol—6 percent, 7 percent, even 10 percent—is in contrast to, say, Guinness, which actually has less kick than Miller Lite.

English Winter Warmers. Much maltier than their American counterparts and with different, more subtle varieties of hop. (Think "pear-shaped diction" and "pearlike hops.")

Belgian Ales. Belgians use candy sugar and funky but felicitous yeasts to produce fat, near-barleywine-style winter beers that can send you spiraling into nirvana (or oblivion).