The ninth installment of this year’s Advent beer calendar features a venerable California brewery making its first appearance in this feature—Drake’s Brewing Company. Probably best known for its hoppy ales, Drake’s released a Christmastime barleywine with a stupendous alcoholic strength at 14.8%, Santa’s Brass.

Whether you’ve been naughty or nice, you better watch out, Santa’s Brass is coming to town. This tasty barleywine ale has been aged in bourbon and port barrels, adding some oak notes that blends perfectly with the sweet, vanilla, and dark fruit notes of the beer.

Santa’s Brass won a GABF medal in 2018 and a California Craft Brewer’s Cup medal this year. It was also pouring at this year’s Holiday Ale Festival in Portland which just wrapped up this past weekend.

This is a perfect late-night sipper by the fireplace on Christmas Eve as you wait for Santa to arrive and fill the stockings. Or a dessert accompaniment on Christmas day, paired with pie or fruitcake. (Proper, brandy-soaked fruitcake with real fruit, not the candy-sweet neon-colored-fruit-chunks variety.) Cheers!

Find Drake’s Santa’s Brass on:

• Untappd
• BeerAdvocate
• RateBeer
• Facebook

Top image credit: Drake’s Facebook page