Santa's Night Off

To deliver toys to all the world's children in a single night must be very thirsty work.  Luckily, some try to get on Santa's good side by leaving something besides milk and cookies.  Not wanting to drink and fly, he takes the special gifts home to sample after another successful holiday.  Santa and Mrs. Claus begin their vacation with a New Glarus Wisconsin Belgian Red, an ale as iconic as Santa's suit with its white cap sitting atop a cherry red beer.  The elves put too much coal in the sleigh, so Santa is a bit disgruntled when he gets to the North Pole and Mrs. Claus pours him a pint of Ridgeway Brewing's Bad Elf to take his mind off the evening's mishaps.  After almost a year of hard work, the exhausted elves get the party started with a glass or three of Arrogant Bastard from Stone Brewing.  And to insure that he's always popular, Rudolph manages to hide a keg of Big Sky Moose Drool in the back of the sleigh for the reindeer games.  As the celebration continues in the workshop, Santa is feeling better and reflects on the reason for the season and decants a bottle of Westvleteren 12, a Trappist ale from the monks of the Abbey of St. Sixtus.  To be politically correct and include our Judeo-Christian partners, Mrs. Claus opens a bottle of He'Brew Jewbelation from Shmaltz Brewing to wash away their post Hanukkah and Christmas melancholy.  Now a bit more jolly, Santa chuckles merrily as he begins to reminisce over the myriad of beautiful Christmas trees he saw this special night and pops the top on a Peaks Brewpub Spruce Juice, a Belgian ale brewed with pine needles.  Draining the glass and the memories of this season, Santa turns once again to the job at hand with Anchor's Our Special Ale.  As the spiced winter ale with a unique yearly recipe swirls absentmindedly in a snifter, Santa meditates on how he will continue to match the perfect toy to every nice boy and girl, and he drowsily dreams of next Christmas Eve.