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!!