Happy Solstice! Today is the shortest day and longest night of the year, the official first day of winter, and to celebrate, today’s Advent beer is a straight classic: Scaldis Bush de Noël from Brasserie Dubuisson of Belgium. It’s also sometimes labeled as simply Scaldis Noël.

This strong Belgian dark ale is 12% ABV with 21 IBUs; it’s a Christmas specialty that’s been brewed for over 30 years. The website description says:

The Bush de Noël is brewed solely from malts, hops, candy sugar and water. It is a filtered, top-fermented beer with an alcohol volume of 12%. The use of caramel malts produces a copper-coloured beer with a full, rounded taste. The Bush de Noël owes its fruity taste and subtle hop aromas to the well-thought out choice of hops in this brew.

I can’t help but think of bûche de Noël, or Yule log cake, when considering this beer—I don’t know if that was intention naming cleverness on the part of Dubuisson, but I think this would be a terrific cake of an ale to serve up this Christmas.

Find Scaldis Bush de Noël on:

• Untappd
• BeerAdvocate
• Facebook

Image credits: Dubuisson’s website, Facebook page