We're counting down to Christmas with 12 beers that resonate with the feel of the holiday. Some beers were nice; some beers were naughty. This is The 12 Beers of Christmas. Enjoy!

Big Sky Brewing in Missoula, MT

For our eighth beer of Christmas, we picked something special. Just like Rudolph’s red nose, the Biere de Noel from Big Sky Brewing stuck out to us like no other beer at the store. In a gorgeous 750 ml bottle with a wrapping around the neck, a charming, Christmasy label and a hand-numbered bottle count, the Biere de Noel had us very excited. We thought this would be our top beer of Christmas. Needless to say, we couldn’t wait to dig into this one.

Biere de Noel labels itself as a dark Belgian ale, which we’re starting to become accustomed to with the other Christmas beers we’ve been working through. We split the bottle among a bunch of friends, a way I would recommend drinking this one. After pouring out a gorgeous dark, reddish honey color, the scent from the glass lightly tickled the air with sprinklings of sweeter fruit and a slightly toxic hint that was barley wine-esque.

The first sips, though, let us down more than we expected. The booze was maybe the most pronounced feature of the brew, with the high-octane fruit flavor popping strongly on the tongue. Caught somewhere between a syrupy-sweet burnt caramel taste and something like a port wine, the Biere de Noel had a lot of flavor, but the flavor combo made it slightly hard to drink. Getting through a full glass of this was a battle for most, and pairing this with a dessert or food would be hard. This is strictly a session beer but without the sessionability. That said, this could be a nice end to a long day (the bottle shows Santa kicking back on Dec. 26th with a glass of the Biere de Noel, after all) if you’re looking for a strong warmer that’s packing a whole bunch of flavor.

Despite being a gorgeous looking beer and one that gets huge points for bottle design, Big Sky’s Biere de Noel was a slight letdown. Maybe we got a little too high on this one before tasting, or maybe the $13.00 price tag pushed our expectations over the top. However, if you’re a fan of Belgian dark ales, you might want to find a bottle of this and give it a try as a nice appetizer to a dinner party. Just don’t blame us if your group struggles with it as much as ours did.