If you pay even the slightest bit of attention to beer news and/or the beer blogosphere, you know that regulators in Maine and New York State are trying to prevent the sales of beers from Ridgeway Brewing in southwest England and distributed by Shelton Brothers in Massachusetts, specifically, those that use images of Santa Claus and other secular Christmas icons on the label. (Our coverage: here and here.)

We, and others, have already discussed the hypocrisy and general stupidity of these bans, so there’s no need to go over it again. Fortunately, Maryland is much more enlightened. Since Ron lives in New York, I thought I should support him over this waste of his tax dollars, plus also give a little support to this company being singled out for no good reason. As such, I picked up a couple of these brews with their oh-so-offensive labels and shared them with my brother at our family holiday get-together.

We first tried Seriously Bad Elf. The label depicts an elf, with a devilish gleam in his eye, tracking Santa’s sleigh with a slingshot. It’s described as a double English ale. The color is nice, and it’s got a nice mouthfeel. The best word I can use to describe it is “hearty”. My brother didn’t care for it, but I thought it was pretty good.

The other beer we tried was Santa’s Butt. (A “butt” is an old brewing term for a large barrel that holds 108 imperial gallons.) This is a porter. It’s deep brown in color, though not as dark as some. It was okay. It wasn’t smoky, which was a blessing, but just average. I was a bit disappointed, as a nice porter on a cold winter night is one of my favorite things. (Just as well that it wasn’t that cold outside.)

All-in-all, these two were okay, not outstanding. I certainly don’t want to condemn the other beers in the “series” (Bad Elf, Very Bad Elf, Criminally Bad Elf, Warm Welcome, Lump of Coal) based on these two. Of course, my purpose was more to thumb my nose at the alcohol regulators in Maine and New York, and I’ve done that.