This being the holidays, allow me to lift my glass of beer and propose a toast:

To St. Nikolaus Bock Bier!

I've written before that this seasonal, brewed on the North Side by the Pennsylvania Brewing Co./Penn Brewery, is one of my all-time-favorite holiday brews. I've noted how it powerfully fueled perhaps the Best Office Christmas Party ever, when liberal amounts brought together (literally) the features staffs of the Post-Gazette and The Pittsburgh Press when the PG bought its competitor (and me) in 1993.

This season is finding me particularly fond of St. Nik.

Let me count the ways.

I like the name itself and how it is spelled. It's also brewed the German way, a la a classic "Munchener dunkel bock bier" -- dark and roasty with malt, with faint burnt edges, and warm with alcohol (6.9 percent by volume), as any good winter brew should be.

Even bigger is the Brewer's Reserve edition, which Penn Brewery first released last season -- in 25-ounce (750-milliliter, or champagne-size) bottles with a foil neck and a red velvet embroidered bag for gift-giving. It's about 8 percent alcohol.

As described by Penn's brewing manager Andy Rich, who's been brewing it for a decade, the Reserve "has just a little more to it." He fondly adds of his favorite brew: "Both versions have magic in them."

I love how the beer looks -- a red-tinged chocolate -- and how it tastes: strong and yet mellow, uncomplicated by the spices and flavorings used in many other holiday brews, even though Mr. Rich will tell you its natural spiciness fools people into believing it has actual spices in it.

This may sound silly, but I love the packaging. The gorgeous label features the colorized face of Thomas Nast's iconic engraving of "Merry Old Santa Claus" that first ran in Harper's Weekly on Jan. 1, 1881. This image became Santa for generations of Americans.

On the label, the jolly old elf is framed in an oval of gold, also bedecked with holly leaves, on a field of brilliant red.

Part of the St. Nik tradition is that each year, in early December, St. Nikolaus himself shows up at Penn Brewery to tap the ceremonial first keg, although fans such as myself usually get our hands on some before then. My holidays wouldn't be the holidays without this brew.

Lots of people love St. Nik.

Penn Brewery founder and now minority partner Tom Pastorius does. He says he and his wife, Mary Beth, came up with the name around 1994 when Penn started bottling and had to drop the name of its old winter bock, Celebrator, which belongs to the German brewer Ayinger.

The couple had lived in Germany and celebrated St. Nikolaus Day, the early December holiday when children put out their shoes for treats or tricks.

He said he cooked up the recipe, still used, which includes four malts -- two-row pilsner, Munich, caramel and black -- and two hops: Hallertau perle for bittering and Hallertau tradition for aroma. The result is balanced and powerfully smooth.

"Everybody went crazy about it right from the get-go, and they went crazy because of it," Mr. Pastorius says with a laugh. "It's easy to drink: You don't know about the alcohol until it hits you between the eyes."

If you ask me, Pittsburgh's own St. Nik is one of the best holiday beers in the world. But you don't have to ask me.

St. Nik is one of the "World's 50 Best Christmas Beers" according to the new book, "Wishing You a Merry Christmas Beer: The Cheeriest, Tastiest, and Most Unusual Holiday Brews" (Universe, $19.95). The sweet little volume is by Don Russell, the "Joe Six-Pack" who started writing about beer for the Philadelphia Daily News. "I love the bock because, these days, most American craft brewers who tackle the style tend to go for doppelbocks, which are much stronger and a good bit less subtle than just plain bock," he says in an e-mail. "Penn's has a great chocolate flavor underlying its basic malt character -- to me it's a beer you can appreciate on several different levels."

As he notes in the book (order at joesixpack.net), after Prohibition, some 30 states made it illegal to decorate a beer label with the image of Santa Claus or St. Nicholas, and a few states, including Maine, still do. Which makes St. Nik a bit illicit, too.

As with other seasonals, that it has only limited availability -- in fall and winter -- probably makes St. Nik more desirable.

But this winter has brought the news, which broke last month, that Penn Brewery has decided to not renew its lease at the historic Eberhardt & Ober brewery where Penn started 22 years ago. The last batch of beer was brewed there last week, when the first batches began to be brewed under contract at the Lion Brewery in Wilkes-Barre. The new president and CEO, Len Caric, has said the restaurant will operate until or even after the lease expires Feb. 28, while the company looks for a new location for a restaurant and at least a small brewing operation in a more bustling neighborhood.

Lots of questions remain, but one some of us are asking is, What becomes of St. Nik?

Mr. Caric says they'll keep making it: He's working on new labels and packaging for all Penn's brands but says they won't touch St. Nikolaus Bock.

Still, even if the label stays the same, will the beer?

Others are wondering, too.

Eric Trimmer is online editor for The Evening Sun, a daily paper in Hanover, York County, for which he writes a beer blog, Trouble Brewing (blogs.eveningsun.com/troublebrewing). He included St. Nik in his "Beer Appreciation 102" project, for which he and 47 people this fall shared two cases of 24 different brews. St. Nik was one of them and "the beer I plan to drink on Christmas Eve after everyone else in the house is asleep," he wrote last week. "BA102 participants, this may be the last St. Nikolaus Bock you ever drink, so enjoy it. Of course, The Lion in Wilkes-Barre was already making many of Penn Brewing's beers, so maybe St. Nikolaus Bock will survive intact. It's a sad thing for Pittsburgh, but at least they'll still have the Steelers."

Penn's Andy Rich says some customers have been stocking up on St. Nik and other brews, just in case. When I stopped in to drink a St. Nik with him last week, before the father of three is laid off, there was no beer in the kettles -- just one of his co-workers, cleaning it out.

As this year ends, the coming days can seem uncertain, if not dark. So far this month I've sipped St. Nik while pondering everything from layoffs to a colleague's final days.

While we know just about everything changes, the holidays are a time when we embrace the good things that do not. So this week I'm looking forward to savoring a St. Nik or three, with family and friends.

This much I know:

For now, we have St. Nikolaus Bock Bier.

And it is good.

Cheers and happy holidays.