toledoblade.com --

Mark Obee pulls open a small door in his Maumee basement to a crawl space where he's stashed two six-gallon carboys of beer. He brewed it himself and he's named it "Santa." It's a mild, drinkable beer that doesn't fit at all into the Christmas beer category, but in the Obee house, everything gets a candy-cane twist.

"Betsy's up to 40 animated figures," he says, referring to his wife's collection of Christmas characters scattered throughout the house.

Back across the room at his bar - outfitted with three taps and decked out with greenery, Santa hats and Coca-Cola Santa Claus coasters - Mr. Obee sips a glass of brown, nutty beer. It has a hint of sweetness and spice that lingers just long enough to make you pause: What is that?

It's Rudolph Doo, a more traditional Christmas ale that Mr. Obee has brewed for two years running. He laces it with just a touch of honey, cinnamon, nutmeg and clove.

"I add just a little bit of spice," he said. "I want people to try to figure out what's in it."Santa Claus is sweeping through home-brewing supply stores, breweries, and beer aisles. (Well, figuratively, anyhow. Government regulators frown upon beer labels depicting Santa for fear of marketing alcohol to children, according to Paul Gatza, director of the Brewers Association.)

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Titgemeier's, a local feed and garden store that sells home-brewing supplies, sold out of its holiday ale kits, said manager Nick Stambaugh. Jim Heltebrake, manager of the wine shop at The Andersons, said his store has sold more holiday beer each year during the past 12 years he's been there. And during the past four years, Great Lakes Brewing Co., in Cleveland, has seen demand for its Christmas Ale jump by at least 30 percent to 40 percent annually.

The brewery added three fermenters last year, and six more are on the way for next year's production, said Great Lakes brewer Luke Purcell.

"Ever since we started brewing it, it's been growing and growing like crazy," he said. "Now we'd probably have protesters outside the building if we didn't brew it."

Holiday ales are about the bling. They have more of everything: More grain, more spice, more hops, more sugar, and more alcohol. They're heavy, full-bodied "sippers," beers you could substitute for a snifter of brandy at the end of the day.

The season of excess inspires brewers to go all out. In Portland, Ore., microbreweries put together 36 of their "best, biggest, baddest, most exotic, thumb-your-nose-at-the-pennypushers" beers for the annual Holiday Ale Festival, said Preston Weesner, general manager of the event.

"This is the beer they put the most thought, time and effort into," Mr. Weesner said. "It's like the pinnacle of their brewing experience. They're saying, 'Hey, look what I can do,' not just on skill, but on finances and patience-wise."

Held under heated tents with clear ceilings, the festival is a modern-day take on winter solstice celebrations dating back thousands of years, Mr. Weesner said. Darker beers developed historically because people were putting up grain for the winter and used what they had on hand.

Because of colder temperatures, said Marnie Old, assistant dean of wine studies at the French Culinary Institute, in New York, beer could be left to age longer than in the summer. Spices were often used as preservatives, enhancing the warming effect of the beer, which already was pretty toasty, given its high alcohol content.

The original wassail - as in "Here We Come A-Wassailing" - was a warm, spiced beer drink offered to visitors who came in out of the cold, she said.

"Spicing makes you warm in the belly," Ms. Old said. "We've turned beer into something that's the same year round, and that wasn't true 200 years ago."

Marketing also wasn't quite what it is today. Although some German beers have traditionally had holiday themes, Christmas beer packaging has evolved to some degree alongside American craft breweries, said Paul Gatza, director of the Brewers Association.

That packaging can be labor-intensive and add to the cost. Mr. Heltebrake said that on average Christmas ales run 10 percent to 20 percent more than regular beers, which also reflects the cost of ingredients.

Maumee Bay Brewing Co.'s holiday ale costs $3.49 a bottle, partly because of the bottle, said brewmaster Philip Pollick. Each bottle is printed by hand using a silkscreen machine in the Oliver House Complex. Because the design features three colors, each bottle passes through the machine three times. Mr. Pollick said he can make about 40 cases of bottles in a day.

The company bottles 100 cases of beer, and another 20 kegs are kept on tap at the Oliver House and Ralphie's, in Perrysburg. Some people collect the bottles, he said.

"It's been a tradition at our brewery year after year," Mr. Pollick said. "It gives us something to look forward to every Christmas."

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