If you’re going for a kludge, you might as well solder a few 1/4 W resistors in parallel, on top of each other – e.g. 2×56 ohm, 3×82, or even 4×100 depending on what you have in your stash will all give you roughly 27 ohm but with more capacity. Since they’ll split the current, you’ll quickly get down below the 1/4 W limit:
EDIT: There’s also the option of removing it – the heater is designed for 12.6 V so can obviously handle 12, but that’ll result in higher power consumption and possibly also hum, see here.