And the Winner Is......

I could have told A.Y.E they're results over a year ago! Congrats to Red and Co. at BlackStone for this feather in the ole cap. Now when can I get another sixer? Or two?

Our Tastes-- Fish Tale Leviathan

Now retired but continuing to stay on top of all thing 10% and higher during this taster, we sampled Fish Tale's Leviathan. This was actually a bottle I picked up in 2008 down in Pensacola, FL at Four Winds International Food Market. Leviathan has a head as flat and road kill and a nose of straight alcohol with it's 10%abv and 300cal per snifter! Ultimately ended up with a 100 on ratebeer.com and concocted with Pale, Carastan, and Chocolate malts then monstrously hopped with Chinook hops for bitterness and Cascade hops for flavor and aroma. Now the hops had fallen by the wayside by the time we savoured this bevvy but the heavy malt bill still paved the sides of the tongue with great rasiny plums and a palatable stickiness. We're both impressed with how these biggin's have matured and kept their backbone.

Mini Crawl 2013?

Stopped in at BlackStone to see Red and his new line of brews and from center to the right: XV,  Hoppy Top™, and an Imperial Chocolate barrel-aged stout. Now from what I can remember XV is the anniversary ale brewed in December of 2012 and constitutes a nice lightly white-frothed Belgian strong ale that initially was a different recipe but now has a tweaked brew sheet and hovers around 10.2%abv. This brew was a cool great Belgian candi with warming alcohol. Hoppy Top™ is a very nice IPA of 69IBUs (purely coincidence, I'm sure;) with a nice Big C flash across the gullet, I think it was Centennial I picked up but Red told me there was some raging Simcoe and another hop, sorry probably could have recalled it before now. But the beast of the night was the Imperial Chocolate barrel-aged stout. Barrel temp with an absolutely phenomenal 10.4%abv chocolate gingerbread nose and aftertaste. Can wait to try this one on 42lbs of pureed cherries per 53gallon barrel! Colors can be seen above. From there on to Bosco's for mug#155 and #153, we comprise the Red sandwich of mugs, and taste Ice Age Wheat and Ice Age Pale Ale respectively. Good beers but the bottom line is, is that they took your basic building blocks of each and smothered them in Glacier hops for minty marketing. They must be abundantly cheap right now. We also sampled Jacklope's Rompo Red Rye Ale (5.6%) but the takeaway there was Bearwalker Maple Brown (5.1%). Bearwalker's use of 100% Vermont Maple syrup gave it a distinct nose and taste of exactly that with the noticeable slight astringency on the tongue sides from it's use. Told Junk we needed some pancakes and bacon to pour it over! Then just to start diluting our urine down below 10% we had Yazoo's latest Hop Project, 72 I think and hefe.

Our Tastes-- Left Hand Oak Aged Imperial Stout 2007

At the time of bottling had 10.4%abv, this would be the same year Junk and I graduated pharmacy school. The head is non-existent, color is an opaque brown black that sucks in light from around it like a new born blackhole. Nose is absolute raisin with a hint of fig. Smoothness of the well balanced brew is ghostly of it's actual content with regards to flavor profile and EtOH balance. Originally a 10th anniversary brew that aged in French oak wine barrels 2008 and prior, changed in 2009 and going forward. The label is so old it has changed since this publishing and is now known as Wake Up Dead Stout and bottled but not corked and bottle conditioned.

The Last of Brew Batch #51

The end of the alien batch (aka Batch #51, where my little girl talks to the mother ship in horse speak in the middle of the night, saying "I am here come and pick me up" like E.T.) It has started to flatten with regards to the foam and settle, color is a great a ruby hue. Taste has started to mellow at the end of this batch, yeast is still there with a little forward hop bitterness. And the only remark from my wife is whether I am going to brew it again for her one year birthday.