Sundae Sunday
The Bruery

750 ml bottle, 2024 edition, bottled 11/01/24. Served in a Hoarders Society chalice, the beer pours dark brown/black with not quite an inch tan head. Head retention and lacing are both decent enough. I like the aroma, the brew smells like boysenberries, red wine/grapes, vanilla, chocolate, molasses and a bit of bourbon. For the most part the taste is similar to the aroma, but there's also the addition of some roasted malt and oaky flavors. To me the boysenberry and wine flavors stand out, but without overpowering the other flavors. Wish the bourbon barrel had more of a kick here but that's really not much of an issue here. Mouthfeel/body is full, it's slick and syrupy with a moderate amount of carbonation. I thought this was a good overall brew, recommend this more to people who like boysenberries and wine barrel aged beers!

From a bottle, 2024 edition. Pours a thick dark opaque chocolate brown. Smells boozy, with lots of berries. The flavor is heavy on the berries with some vanilla on the middle tongue and a dark chocolate finish. The berries are mildly tart. Full bodied and smooth with low carbonation. A very solid stout, although the berries might have been too strong.

Sundae Sunday pours black, with a small tan head. The aroma has big notes of sweet berries. The flavor is sweet, with lots of berries, warm, and hints of vanilla. Good feel. Overall, a big stout, packed with flavor, and lovely, lots of berries.

Black color. Nice-looking, medium-sized head. Aroma of chocolate, vanilla, berries, and bourbon. Rich in taste with notes of dark fruits and a warming finish of bourbon.

Review: 2350
Name: Sundae Sunday
Brewery: The Bruery
Location: Placentia, CA
ABV: 18.5%
Canned: 13 Oct 2022
Date: 30 Mar 2025
I decided to start the seven days on Tuesday, by the The Bruery. I am starting with Sunday. I am using a tulip glass and serving the beer at 50 degrees. Sundae Sunday is my second beer of wine for the day. The pour created a frothy, foamy, one-fingered, light tan head with poor retention. The quick dissipation left no lacing on the glass. The color is inky black with dark reddish brown hues, charting at SRM 36, and opaque. The appearance of the beer is average for this style. I hoped for a longer-lasting head, but the high ABV made me suspect it might not.
Nosing the glass, I smell berries, dark chocolate, red wine, wine musk, yeast, earthiness, vanilla, fruity sweetness, malty sweetness, dark roasted malts, espresso, wood, bourbon, and a light char. Smelling the beer again, I detect molasses, leather, light toasted bread crust, biscuits, caramel, toffee, raisins, dates, dried cherries, and floral esters. The beer has these huge aromas of barrel, red wine, and imperial stout aromas, making it difficult to differentiate what I am smelling.
Sipping the beer, I taste the barrel aging, red wine, and imperial stout alongside the tart berries and vanilla. The barrel aging imparts oak, whiskey, char, resins, light orange, and caramel notes. The red wine showcases the grapes, wine musk, and terroir. The imperial stout adds molasses, dark roasted notes, Maillard, leather, earthiness, lightly toasted biscuit, toffee, raisin, vanilla, dark chocolate, coffee, and light grassiness. The ripe berries add a delightful sweetness with some tartness balancing it out.
The mouthfeel is chewy and smooth, and the finish is warm and tart. The body is heavy and has medium-low carbonation.
This fantastic beer with a massive barrel, red wine, and imperial stout flavors, making it a delight to finish the night. I love the contrast between the prominent flavor profiles, creating the beer's lovely harmony and balance. I have consumed this beer a few times in the taproom, and it is always a delight to imbibe.

This pours a somewhat thin dark brown with boozy, viscous edges; absolutely no head formation or lacing. Nose is very wood forward, followed by bargain shelf bourbon and jam. This is an accurate reflection of the label; it's also an accurate reflection of things I drank in high school - definite half bottle of Old Crow mixed with a fruit juice vibes. As it warms, some of the rougher edges come off - vanilla does begin to come through, while the rawer alcohol mellows. Berry, jam, and blackberry notes open up as well. Taste leads a little rough - wood, ethanol, char. Very little in the way of vanilla (either from the barrel of adjunct) or really from the berry either. I was expecting this to be far sweet, but it's pretty subdued (which is fine!). As a result, though, the beer is pretty hot and spicy - there's some good warming, but it's mostly just alcohol, and it doesn't marry with the more beer-centric elements. Feel is again pretty light and is almost entirely flat. Overall, this just feels like some stuff dumped together and not something really developed. I also have zero clue what this has to do with sundaes.
Overall, this feels

Why wait ’til Sunday to have a sundae? Hitting hard with bourbon and wine barrels and blended with boysenberry and vanilla, The Bruery’s sundae beer is good any day of the week.

Tawny black and pouring much like an ominous brandy, Sundae Sunday pours nearly still swirling with those brandy-like legging on the glass. As a spicy, fruity, toasty and roasty scent rises, the wine and whisky influences aren’t lost on the nose. As its sultry sweetness coats the tongue, early impressions of molasses, dark chocolate, port sweetness and toffee malts begin to saturate the palate.

As the flavors roll along the middle palate, the enormity of booze strikes the tastebuds with the force of bourbon and brandy. Deepening into a dark roast coffee, light smokey and peppery sense of complexity, the beer’s more savory and oxidized character of sherry finishes the session with heat, peppery oak and dry caramelization.

Full bodied but balanced by the prickling head and mild vinous acidity, the ale fades slowly into strong brandy-like session with a long aftertaste of macerated berries and fortified wine.

 

Opaque brownish black with a finger of light brown foam. Smell is a sneaky robust: bourbon barrel, with supporting tobacco, char, wood to go with the hyper sweet wine poached berry and vanilla notes. Best of these new variants honestly: the boysenberry with vanilla, red wine lead, with dark cherry, chocolate and bourbon barrel are the rest, but the berry does sit on the palate heavily long after the sip. Feel is not hot, but has a boozy undertone in a heavy and chewy, but not that thick body with a hit of tartness

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dang I thought I reviewed this one too. Ok, here we go.

Pours black/dark brown. If you look for a purple edge I bet you can find it. Doesn't hold much of a head. That 1/10" realm. I dunno, tan? Its a lighter colored head for those who expect a brown or cherry cola rust like I did. The aroma has that bourbon meets vanilla ice cream tag team back again. It isn't smelling all that boozy or roasty. Other aspects covering it.

The taste is about the sweetest Black Tuesday variant I've ever had (off the top of my head, don't quote me). Instead of a massive roasted malt portfolio it swaps in a hefty amount of vanilla and blackberry/boysenberry. And I did like it, at least the one we had in Sheldon's garage I did. I think we also did one at a March Madness as well. It does a really good job at covering a massive abv. I couldn't get the wine vibe going. Oily, not dry. Dark chocolate. Thick, low carbonation. Does a pretty good job, dare I say, its a berry good beer.

750 mL bottle into snifter

Dark brown brew, a little lighter colored than Black Tuesday. Nose has all of the boozy, rich, oaky aspects of BT, with a berry jam note cutting through the center.

This follows on the palate, but from the reviews before mine, I think aging this a bit has tamped down the sweetness. Boysenberry is easily detectable, but not overpowering. As usual, long, sweet finish.

Not sure if its a palatal illusion, but the added fruit seems to have cut through its viscosity as well.

Skeptical of brews with added fruit, but this is an absolutely knock-out variant of BT.

 

2/20/20 bottle date; Poured into a snifter.

This BT variant is a new one for me. Super excited to get into it.

A semi-vigorous pour results in a quickly dissipating head. The look is a dark cola brown, with the nose super heavy on the boysenberry.

The taste follows the nose. Super berry. Very one-note. Because of this, we let it sit a while longer and came back to it...

As it warms, the berry is much less pronounced, but still pretty heavy. The vanilla starts to show it’s face too, which is a welcome addition.

The alcohol is present, but to me, fairly hidden for 17.2. Very, very good, but not sure I’d seek it out again over the other BT variants.

750ml waxed and capped bottle into a Brooklyn Brewery snifter.

Pours almost dark brown instead of black. Looks thin. Coarse head with no retention. Not the best. Nose is raspberry, chocolate, roasted malt, vanilla and booze. Aromatic. Nice complexity. Beer opens coarse cocoa powder and roasted malt up front. Dark fruit, perhaps raspberry and strawberry hides just behind. Sweet soy sauce, prunes and chocolate in the middle. Molasses, tobacco and oak linger in the back. Finishes syrupy, more cocoa powder, tobacco and chocolate. Very solid. Body is full with low carbonation. Oily and slick on the palate and hot going down. Long, lingering, sticky finish. Big and bold for sure.

This one's not much of a looker but it drinks pretty good.