Stash kill the roundup.

So there have been a few bottles emptied over the past few weeks, but with little time to sit down and update the blog these have gone undocumented until now! Thankfully I have notes on them all and am not just having to rely on memory.

Bla Spogelse - Mikkeller/Three Floyds

This awesome beer first came to my attention on my last visit to IndyMan beer festival, and was in my top 3 beers of the entire festival. A blueberry sour ale that was aged in oak barrels. Firstly the colour is nuts, an awesome deep purple with a light purple fluffy head. The aroma is pretty full on, blueberries and funk. Even though this bottle was a few years old, the blueberries haven't gone anywhere and are matched only by the sprightly sour notes. This is such a great beer, so keep an eye out for it.

Sanctification - Russian River

Last year I was lucky enough to holiday in California, and luckier still I got to visit Russian River. Well known for their imperial IPA Pliny the Elder, it is their sours that are the must try. This is a bretted golden ale, and supremely refreshing. The Brett gives it a subtle sourness, not mouth puckering at all. This just sparks with citrus, sherbet and banana. A perfect beer for a warm day.

Cuvee Reserve 2015/16 Burning Sky

I don't hide the fact that I am a Burning Sky fanboy, and there are certainly plenty more bottles of their exemplary beer still in my stash. I dug this out for two reasons, firstly I had two of them :) and secondly I had just tasted their 2017 Cuvee which left me wanting more Burning Sky goodness. This is a blend of Saison á la Provision with a large portion of lambic from Girardin which was then aged for a year in oak barrels on lambic lees. Now if that doesn't float you boat, check your pulse!
This is golden in the glass with a puffy bright white head, and is all subtlety and depth. Slight sourness but not overpowering, lots of hints of citrus lemon, white grapes, grapefruit and oak funk. Basically this is something to be enjoyed, shared and bathed in... ok that last bit may just be a dream I had.

DeuS (Brut des Flandres) - Brouwerij Bosteels

Where do you start with DeuS? It is a Belgian Triple that is literally the Champagne of the beer world. Once brewed it is transferred to the Champagne region of France where it is matured and fermented in the same way as Champagne, decadence in a bottle. It is sweet on the nose and taste. Lots of peaches, pears, lemon and hints of spicy pepper. There is an oiliness to it, so it goes down very easily but there is a hint of warmth from the alcohol. One for a special occasion, or in my case a Saturday night ha ha!

Szech 'n Brett 2015 - Logsdon

Logsdon Farmhouse Ales do some awesome saisons and this is one of them. An off white head sits on top of a golden honey coloured beer. The nose is what you would expect zesty funk with a pepper spice in the background. The taste follows but it is the level of that pepper spice that sets this apart, it is 100% on the money. There is also a herbal note to this. This is just a straight up saison but done better than most others. I have had a few others from Logsdon and this is what they excel at, old school beer styles done incredibly well.

Alexander 2015 - Rodenbach

Rodenbach should need no introduction, but Alexander might. From their own description, this mixed fermentation beer consists of two thirds beer that was matured in oak casks for 24 months and one third young beer, and has been subjected to maceration with sour cherries. In the glass this is a hazy brownish red. You can immediately tell this is a Rodenbach beer with that hint of soy sauce on the nose, along with some red wine and toffee. On tasting there is the immediate sour soy sauce tang that I love, but the cherries are actually quite subtle and I get a more prominent taste of toffee apple. As it warms there is more cherry but it never becomes dominant. It is a cracking beer, and once the bottle is finished I am immediately thinking about getting another.

Bourbon Barrel Oil of Aphrodite - Jackie O's

So you think you have tasted a big robust stout? So did I, but another one comes along that makes you just go, whoa!! This stout did that to me. It is stout brewed using walnuts and Belgian Candied sugar, then aged in Bourbon barrels just for good measure. The aroma that comes out of the glass is almost overpowering, bourbon, chocolate, nuts, truffle oil just fills the room. You get all that in the taste, with the extra hit of coffee roast and caramel. It is so full and smooth, it is like molasses. This is 100% what I like about imperial stouts taken to the next level. I am already scanning the online stores looking more from this brewery.

So there you have it, all up to date, hope you enjoyed reading.

Mikkeller/Brewdog/Nogne - Black Tokyo Horizon

The icy weather we have been having just cries out for big stouts, and this is a fusion of three of the biggest stouts out there. Mikkeller's Black, Brewdog's Tokyo* and Nogne's Dark Horizon! All three breweries got together at Brewdog and put this beast together. I have been lucky enough to savour all three on their own and none of them let me down in terms of flavour and heft. So I was looking forward to tasting this.

I bought this on my first visit to friends in Aberdeen and my first visit to Brewdog's flagship bar in 2013. Since then it has been sitting in my stash until now.

Black Tokyo* Horizon

In the glass this is pitch black, completely opaque! It has a small tan head which went as quickly as it formed, which isn't surprising given the age and style. I didn't have to get my nose too near the glass before I could smell the wondrous aromas of malt and treacle, think the smell of a treacle soda farl and you are in the right ballpark. This was mingled with raisins, fruit cake and roast, bordering on a slight smokiness.

The taste fairly much followed the nose, with that malty breadiness being the predominant flavour. As it warmed, all the dark fruit comes through with added chocolate and a muscovado sugar sweetness. In terms of alcohol heat, there isn't much. Don't get me wrong you know you are drinking a big beer, but that 15.2% is hidden scarily well.

All in all this was exceptional and everything I like about imperial stouts!

Jolly Pumpkin - Maracaibo Especial Vintage Reserve 2015

Catching up with last week's gem from the stash, Maracaibo Especial from Jolly Pumpkin. I have had various beers from Jolly Pumpkin over the years and they have always been exceptional so expectations were high for this one.

The side of the bottle gives a better description of what this is than I could.

A rich brown ale inspired by the enigmatic monastic brews of Belgium, and the mysterious mist shrouded jungles of the tropics. Brewed with real cacao, and spiced with cinnamon and sweet orange peel for a sensual delight. A brew to be sipped, savoured, and enjoyed!

This poured a lovey chestnut brown, with a good one finger beige head on it. I could smell the Belgian influence straight away, with a subtle barnyard funk emanating from the glass. Closer inspection you get some sour cherries with a hint of chocolate. Cinnamon and Orange Peel are usually quite strong aromas but I didn't get any of them.

The cinnamon comes through more on the taste, but it was still fairly muted and the orange peel was non existent. But there was chocolate, and a sort of candied sugar sweetness. As with other Jolly Pumpkin beers the sour funky side of things is subtle rather than face puckering, which works well in this style and is actually more of a Flanders red funk with those cherry notes and a bit of soy on the back end.

All in all this is wonderfully subtle, which may seem like a weird thing to say, but you can pick out all those flavours without a big punch from any of them. My opinion of Jolly Pumpkin has been reinforced by another excellent beer from them.

Lost Abbey - Track #10 (Bat out of hell)

This week's dip into the stash, I came away with Lost Abbey's Track #10 Bat out of Hell

Well what is it? Another big stout as it happens, more specifically a 13.5% imperial stout aged in bourbon barrels with coffee and cacao nibs. Sounds wonderful, doesn't it?

Years ago when I first started looking further afield from your run of the mill ales and standard Belgian fare, I happened upon Lost Abbey. They seemed to come up time and again on American beer blogs and YouTube videos I had been reading/watching. When Beer Geek Nation uploaded a review of Serpent stout I just had to get a bottle and that I did. It certainly lived up to the hype and maybe one day I will crack another bottle and review it here. But when I found out they had thrown Serpent Stout in a bourbon barrel and added cacao nibs and coffee to it, I was on the search to find a bottle of what is Track #10 Bat out of Hell.

Now I have no idea how old this bottle was, and there is nothing on the bottle to indicate the date it was bottled on, but it is at least 2 years old. Popping the cork I could already smell the coffee and bourbon, once in the glass it opened up a bit more with milk chocolate and dark sugar sweetness. 

The taste is layers of coffee and vanilla, but that milk chocolate has turned dark with the associated bitterness you get with high percentage dark chocolate. All the coffee and dark chocolate bitterness is perfectly balanced when the caramel sweetness kicks in. For 13.5% there is no heat or booze on this, a dangerous thing given how smooth and easy drinking it is. That smoothness is mirrored in the mouth feel, it is like engine oil and coats the entire mouth.

All in all this is another perfectly balanced imperial stout, all components working together in harmony. I was sad to see the bottom of the glass, but I will no doubt seek out another bottle of this some day and I would recommend you do too.

The stash must die!

It’s a new year, a time for reflection and new beginnings. Or new endings?

It has been two years since my last post and I haven’t really thought about posting in any of that time. So why now? Well I had a plan for this year, it includes beer and I thought I could probably document it.

Firstly, when I moved house it became apparent just how many beers I had squirreled away, a frightening amount to be honest, I’ll not go into numbers but I could set up a small shop (for a while anyway).

Secondly, last year we lost some good folk along the way, saw the turmoil in the world increase, U2 kept on playing music and I have had, on more than one occasion, a chat about life being short yada yada yada.

This prompted me to think about all that beer sitting there and what if something unfortunate happened to me. I would never get to experience or taste those wonderful beers, and some other beer wankers (you know who you are) would get to drink them in my absence. I can’t have that lol. Therefore as the title suggests, the stash must die! Before I do :)

Starting shortly, each weekend I will be plucking a beer or two from the stash, uncapping/corking it and enjoying it. Some on my own, some with friends, but all will be savoured and hopefully not drain poured. I plan on letting you know, what the beer is, why I sought it out, how I acquired it and of course did it live up to expectation.

Now I did start this during the tail end of last year, opening some of my bucket list beers, so to give you a taste of things to come I give you Avery Tweak

Avery Tweak

This is a bourbon barrel aged coffee stout; massive in flavour and abv, coming in at 16%. It takes their Mephistopheles stout as its base, adds coffee and then barrel ages it in bourbon barrels for about 4 months. The non barrel aged version was called Meth Addict, but was deemed inappropriate so they changed it to Tweak for the barrel aged version. I don’t know, I would have bought a beer called Meth Addict. On a trip to the States I had sampled some of Avery’s wears, in particular their Raja DIPA, The Maharaja DIPA and Ellie’s Brown Ale. All awesome and they made me look further into their other brews, and Tweak hit all the notes as their beer for me (I happen to be a fan of big stouts, throw them in a barrel and you have my attention). Being unable to find it anywhere and even less so on my return to Belfast, I have always kept an eye out for it. As luck would have it, the wonderful Beergium got some in at the start of last year and an order was made.

Did it live up to the hype? In several words, it did and then some! It stunk to high heaven of coffee, roasted cacao, vanilla, tobacco, barrel and booze. This all followed through on the taste, but had an unexpected sweetness, not cloying, just the right amount to balance the coffee bitterness and booze. Although it hid the abv, there was a warmth at the end that just reminded you it was 16%. All in all, this is a lesson in how to make this style work, everything coming together and nothing overpowering everything else. Highly recommended and I would definitely get some more given the chance.

Happy new year folks, hear is to living life and killing the stash!!