Imperial Eclipse Stout - Old Fashioned
FiftyFifty Brewing Co.

2024 bottle, the bourbon had presumably mellowed a lot. Very sweet, syrupy, and cloying with the cherries shining through. I like cherry flavors so that was a plus. I dislike orange rind, but thankfully that was nigh undetectable. A sipper for sure.

2024 vintage on tap in the brewery, cool to see some adjunct versions of this spring up, not sure what all this is spiked up with, but orange zest is definitely part of the equation and its still really bourbon forward, but like other recent iterations of this, as much as i like it, it seems less epic than they used to, is it still made with honey? doesnt smell or taste or feel like it despite plenty of residual sugar, especially in this one, demerara sugar i believe is part of the old fashioned edition, but the base stout overall has maybe lost some of its sparkle in terms of quality, at least in my experience. sturdy and black from the tap, a little bit of sediment in it clinging to the edges of the glass after each drag i take off it, messy looking really, very little head or carbonation, and the nose is real sweet, brown sugar and maple, toffee and creme brulee top, essential orange oil with its bitter pith too, some coffee, dark chocolate, and good whiskey here as well, light vanilla, dark bread, and subtle almond, pleasing and different, certainly better than it looks but possible overdone on the extras at the expense of the base beer. the flavor is orange forward, natural but concentrated, not really contributing to the sweetness but carried by it to an extent, milk chocolate now, bran, toffee, maple, pudding, alcohol heat, and something slightly scorched. the barrel is there, lots of oak here trying to make it silky, but the beer is borderline chunky to drink, maybe this is better from the bottle, more refined there, but the draft pour i had was a little rough. flavors are good if a bit strong, and im not sure it approximates an old fashioned all that well, tons of orange cutting through and lightening this a bit, i like the chocolate malt character it reveals and thats a nice synergy, and the bourbon part is predictably excellent. overall though this is in need of the refinement that defined the series for me many years ago, hope they can get back to that. this doesnt need to be flavored, cool that it is, but its not quite ideal, below expectations this time unfortunately, even kind of hard to finish a small pour...