Summer might be the unofficial season for beer, but that’s no reason to neglect it in the winter.

In fact, most serious beer geeks look forward to winter just as much as summer, since cold weather signals the arrival of a host of rich stouts, porters and barrel-aged winter beers. And, once they’re gone, you’ll have to wait a whole year before they turn up again.

This raises a so-much-beer-to-try-and-so-little-time problem, though, given the amazing selection of imports at the LCBO and the ever-changing creative brews from Toronto’s 40-something craft breweries. Although it’s impossible to comprehensively taste it all, we can dramatically improve our odds by hosting a winter beer potluck, encouraging each guest to bring a large format bottle (or two, or three) to share, to max-out the variety of beer for sampling.

“The key is to make sure you have variety and, with beer, that means you want to have a range of different flavours, styles, colours and alcohol levels,” says Mirella Amato, a Master Cicerone (sort of like a next-level sommelier, but for beer) and beer consultant. “The trick for this tasting is probably making sure you don’t wind up with all IPAs, because they’re super popular right now.”

Amato suggests actually assigning an “ingredient” to each guest — hops, malt, yeast and wood, each of which corresponds to a style of beer. For the sake of accuracy, she points out that yeast and wood aren’t really ingredients, per se, (the yeast actually makes the beer; wood refers to barrel-aging beer) but it’s an easy way to communicate a style to the craft beer sales associate at the LCBO or your local craft brewery’s bottle shop.

Hop-forward beers are the easiest assignment, since those are the aforementioned IPAs that are having a serious moment. That said, there’s a lot of variety within that category — so much so that Amato suggests you could simply do a tasting just of different IPAs from this “delicious and wonderful style.” To get a good feel for the style, though, Amato suggests starting with a hoppy double IPA.

Shopping for malt-forward beers is a little more complicated, since the category includes a wide range of rich, dark and relatively diverse beers, such as porters, stouts and red ales — which generally get their colour from deeply-roasted malt. The third category, yeast-forward beers, include German-style wheat beers that are popular in the summer, but, for a winter tasting, Amato suggests a Belgian-style Abbey beer. Look for a “Dubbel”, “Tripel” or a “Quadrupel” from Belgium for intense fruit and spice notes.

Finally, there’s the wood. “I would absolutely recommend bringing in a barrel-aged beer, since they’re available this time of year and only for a short time,” she says, adding not to worry about the style of beer in this case. “What brewers do is they’ll take a beer and put it in a barrel that previously housed a bourbon, or rum, or scotch or wine and the beer will take on those flavours, turning it into a really complex and delicious thing.”

This four-ingredient plan should make it possible for guests to get a handle on the several different styles of winter beers and, better yet, encourage them to delve deeper into the flavour profiles they like on their own, after the party’s over. To help them with that, there’s one last thing you can do as a host.

“I find everyone always has a lot of fun at these types of parties, but then sometimes you go home and can’t remember what you thought of each beer,” says Amato. “So it’s great to have tasting sheets available for everybody.” They’re easy to make on your own — with categories for aroma, appearance, flavour, mouth feel and finish — but it’s easier still to download professional tasting sheets from Amato’s Beerology website (www.beerology.ca).

And the final touch? Stock up on chocolate.

“Encourage your friends to bring in whatever chocolates they might have lying around and do some mixing and matching,” she says. “You’ll find the rich notes and flavours in these winter beers really go with the flavours in chocolate. It’s a recipe for a fantastic evening.”

SIDEBAR: As an independent consultant, Amato doesn’t play favourites. She never recommends specific brands, only styles. To illustrate how easy it was to follow her advice, though, we tracked down one specific beer from each of the four categories, all of which are available at the LCBO or local craft breweries.

Hops: Renaissance Brewing Boom Double IPA ($6.95; LCBO 545822) — a super-hoppy IPA from one of New Zealand’s most exciting breweries.

Malt: Kurayami Mysterious Stout by Godspeed Brewery ($3.50, available in Godspeed’s bottle shop: 242 Coxwell Ave.) — a much-loved beer at this sensational brewery in Toronto’s east end.

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Yeast: La Trappe Tripel ($8.10; LCBO 413575), a classic Dutch fruit-forward Tripel.

Wood: Captain’s Keep by Northern Maverick Brewery ($14, available in Northern Maverick’s bottle shop: 115 Bathurst St.) — a special anniversary release of a dark Belgian tart ale aged for six months in Caribbean rum barrels.