This series of posts is dedicated to the many, many six packs, pony kegs and pints that have sauntered into my life at one point or another.

I’m now two years removed from residency in the picturesque mountain burg of Asheville, North Carolina. The span of time gives me enough data points to state with confidence that I never feel quite so homesick for Beer City U.S.A. as during Cold Mountain season.

Cold Mountain is a spiced winter ale offered by Highland Brewing, the pioneering craft brewer in a city that has now exploded with modest, innovative competitors. The beer typically made its yearly bow in mid-November, lasting in various venues across the area for a good couple of months. It is so coveted that impromptu online tools emerge just to track its availability. Once, at a time of particular scarcity during the season, one of those feeds alerted us to the opening of a Cold Mountain tap line at a dive bar we usually didn’t frequent (mostly because of their tenuous grasp of what items should be burned to generate heat). We wound up enjoying the the most perfectly chilled glass of the ale we ever had.

These days, I don’t crave Cold Mountain. If I were to make a list of North Carolina beers I wish I could make magically appear in my fridge, Cold Mountain likely wouldn’t even crack the top ten. Even so, the beer represents a certain time and place for me, stirring up the warmest of memories. It’s one of the beers that feels like home, or at least one of my homes.