Primordial Unity
Cigar City Brewing

6 oz draft pour at Lures Bar & Grille. This is a black-as-night, thick stout with a sexy tan head. Aroma and flavor feature waves of dark malt, coffee, dark chocolate, caramel, bourbon, vanilla, oak, sweet cream, and a hint of earthy spice. Complex and incredibly drinkable for the abv. Smooth, viscous, lightly carbonated mouthfeel. Not overly sweet or cloying. Overall a fantastic high-abv BBA stout.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another El Cat bottle! 500ML of liquid trapped in a yellow-waxed bottle. I hate wax. Split with my wife.

Black. My wife claims she can smell the bourbon as I was walking the glass over to her & I would agree. Sweet malt, semi-sweet chocolate, bourbon overall. Simple. Straightforward.

Primordial Unity is a PHD level class in throwback simplicity. Bourbon blankets this like Buxton smothers center field, but with fewer injuries. Deep malts, light roast, char, bitter oak, cocoa. A sipper one could gulp.

This brew is a mélange of classic flavors without any coconut, shellfish or spider venom added. Excellent beer.

 

Poured at 56 degrees; black with ruby edges; quick fizzy dark tan head leaves an island of micro dots and thin ring; some soapy lacing; medium thick legs on swirl. Nose is bourbon!, cacao, oak and vanilla; boozy retro nasal. Taste is sooo good...dark chocolate bourbon balls; semi sweet and definitely chocolate; oaky vanilla with an earthy roast bitterness; woody and chocolate bourbon on backend. Velvety rich feel; full body; not adjuncty; warmth in mouth from 14.3% abv; dry barrel finish. Amazing; so well balanced, drawing flavors from base and barrel evenly; as it warms, more bourbon, oak and vanilla come out complimenting the dark chocolate; aftertaste is a dark chocolate that makes you crave more...I’m dumbstruck.

Very good head production for the style and ABV. Decent retention; after the bulk of the foam has faded, there is a relatively thick ring of dark brown foam around the rim, and a bit of a brown topper, almost like a color-adjusted partially iced-over lake.

I can smell the bourbon from a good four feet away, wafting over to tempt me into a deeper sniff. Sure enough: so much bourbon! It's quite sweet, almost floral, like wildflower honey, if the flowers grew in a swamp where the water is molasses and the silt brown sugar. Espresso, oak, red grape, honeycomb, chocolate, caramel, toffee, toast. This is the Spinal Tap of bourbon barrel aged imperial stouts: it smells like the rest, only it goes to 11.

If this beer can't quite deliver on the promise of the nose, that's hardly a complaint; if you dreamed of being an angel in Heaven, but woke up as a king or queen in a palace, sure, you COULD complain, but you'd be a serious jerk (and the servants probably wouldn't appreciate your new-found perspective).

It has absolutely everything you want from a bourbon barrel aged imperial stout. If Bourbon County set the expectations for what a non-flavored BBA IS could be, this beer more than lives up to that inspiration. As I look to score this beer, I'm finding it difficult to determine what, exactly, could be improved upon; how could this taste better, especially with a clean presentation of hops, malt, yeast, and water, tossed into a bourbon barrel?

Looking back at my review and ratings for BCBS, I suggest the answer to my question is: it couldn't. This is as perfect an expression of a BBA IS as I can currently imagine, the king of the hill, if not better than any I've had before, then easily as good. If this isn't perfection, then my imagination is apparently too poor and too limited to conjure thoughts of what that would actually be.

Thick, chewy, full body; you could really tell from the pour, which almost seemed like it didn't want to leave the bottle, a conch comfortable in its home, no matter how delicious it is and how much you want it in your mouth. (I said conch, for the record.) It's a big beer, obviously, and there is no way to fully disguise the alcohol. It's like putting Harry's cloak of invisibility on Hagrid; no matter how effective the invisibility on what it covers, there's still going to be a whole lot sticking out (and again, I said CONCH earlier, you dirty, dirty reader you). That said, it's remarkably easy to drink. I have no problem really letting it sit, savoring the entirety of the sip, slowly chewing on it. The beer; the conch was hypothetical for the sake of analogy. Although conch is pretty chewy, too, come to think of it.

World class. Hands down. Need I say more? This review is already longer than your kid's high school essay on the dropping of the atomic bombs in World War II, so ... no, I probably don't need to say more.

Upgraded my rating after 5 years in the cellar. Head mostly gone but the complex dark malt flavors have risen and the Bourbon flavor and mouth feel is among the best ever tried. Fresh = 4.6, 5 -year age = 4.8. please brew again CCB!