Dystopias
Free Will Brewing Co.

Free Will Dystopias American Strong Ale, 20.1% ABV. Pours blackish brown. It's a 'still' beer, so no carbonation or lacing. I'm drinking this at room temperature. Aroma is strong alcohol (!), sweet dark fruit, and chocolate. Taste is strong alcohol, then chocolate and dark fruit, moderately sweet, slightly bitter, lots of alcohol burn. Decent mouthfeel considering it's a still beer. Overall excellent.

The pour is strong coffee brown with no head whatsoever. Being what it is, that’s no surprise.
The aroma, which I can rarely comment on, is that of a very strong plum and fig liquor.
The taste is subdued by the massive malt bill, but plums are present in the sip, dates and figs followed, and the alcohol burn finishes off the swallow. These are broad brush strokes, there is a lot more going on but these are the highlights.
The feel is more viscous than I expected from the taste; liquor tends to be thinner than what this is.
OA, it’s very good and I look forward to having a small shot of it many times in the future.

Pouring a cellar temp corked bottle into my stemless snifter. This is batch #2. Ive had the beer for a bit and taken small samplings, but not done my review. Figure after utopias yesterday no better time than the present.
So, the beer pours a rich dark mahogany color and almost no light passes through my glass. Only garnet highlights on the edges of the beer. Zero foam or head, as expected even after an aggressive pour. Some nice legs form from any swirls, like a merlot or liquor would exhibit.
Aroma is brown sugar and raisins with some fusol notes but also fig and general brown liquor notes. No hop character on this beer. Pretty complex aroma on this beer.
First sip reveals a medium body and sticky texture and coating or my palate. There is no carbonation on this beer at all, it drinks like a liquor. Flavor is also very complex very malty with figs, brown sugar, brown liquor, bourbon, some raisin and a bit of toffee too. Very malt driven, and not nearly as boozy as I would expect 20% to be. No hop character to be found.
I gotta say, I drank utopias yesterday and this is much more enjoyable for me.

2025-01-05
Opened this last night with some friends, following up with a second pour today. Got it from @beergoot last year. Batch #3 (20.1% abv).

Pours murky dark nutty brown, still, little to no head. Smell is hot and boozy, dates and toffee and nuts. Something makes me think of char.

Taste is even hotter than the nose suggests, enhances the slight char-ness I am probably imagining. Something makes me think of grapes and sherry. Dates are still there, particularly in the aftertaste. Sweet, with lots of bitter-adjacent flavors to make it counterintuitively balanced.

Mouthfeel is thick, chewy, not sticky, good match for the booziness. Good beer to drink in small quantities.

 

Beautiful dark brown hue, clear; no carbonation or head. Wondrous aroma; dark, roasted malts, baker's chocolate; raisins and dates; tobacco; hint of cherry and blackberry brandy; light alcohol smell. Dark, rich sweetness entwined with a fine boozy flavor; spicy; star anise; maraschino cherries; chewing tobacco. Heavy body; chewy and vinous; bold undercurrent of alcohol warmth courses through the sip.

This is a fantastic still beer. It opens with complexity and depth and builds upon it with every sip. Heady and alluring.

Pouring temperature: room temperature; bottling info: Batch No. 2
Source: gift (@DIM in conjunction with BA Barleywine / Stout BIF #1)

Received a 750 ml bottle 12-7-23 from @DIM with the instructions to share it with ex BA @BMBCLT who had listed this as a want last year. Half of the bottle was poured into a half-growler.

Did a full pour into a 4 oz festival glass. Given this is a still beer, there was no head. I am seeing a burgundy-brown color.

Nose is very nice as i am getting a lovely combination of dark fruits and vanilla.

Taste is a large malt base as i am getting figs and prunes, caramel, raisins, leather, vanilla, and i believe some port or brandy barrels along with bourbon barrels. Finishes really well balanced given the strong barrel influence.

Mouthfeel is medium bodied and very smooth.

Overall, what a treat! I am so desiring another 4 oz pour yet i want to enjoy the 375ml over several pours. Dan was very very generous in sharing a bottle! Thank you, kind sir!

Batch 2 poured at room temperature from 750 ml bottle into a snifter glass. Pours a very still dark brown color, no head which is to be expected. This has some legs as you swirl it around the glass. Smell is a wide array of aromas from vanilla, oak, plum, raisin, dark cherry, cocoa, caramel, and leather. Taste hits with plum, cherry, and some tobacco up front. Then in the middle there's more dark fruit, dark cherry seems to intensify. Finish is red grape, dark cherry, cocoa, tobacco, and raisin/prune. Feel is medium to full, no carbonation (again, to be expected), alcohol heat is present. Overall, this is a smooth sipper. Very interesting flavors that all play nicely together. A very creative beer (malt liquor) from Free Will.

Poured from a sample sent by @sulldaddy. Pours a very dark brown with zero head (as expected). The nose is intense. Prunes, plums, sherry, some alcohol, and raisins. The taste is insane. Molasses, prunes, figs, raisins, booze, slight chocolate, sherry, port. A mild sweetness and a sharp bite come through. Wow. This is really a wonderful experience. Something comparable would be Don from HotD, but this blows that away. Definitely some heat as it goes down.

 

Batch 2

Since this is an homage to Utopias, it's really tempting to compare the two. I don't think that's fair though. The beers in the Utopias can be many multiples older and the finished blend is 40% stronger. Utopias is really good at being what it is, a vaguely beer like liquor, and Dystopias is good at being what it is, a somewhat liquor like beer. So I'm not using the original as benchmark for scoring.

They don't list any barrels, but I get strong bourbon and port vibes. There is a strong raisin flavor, covered with a very thin layer of chocolate. Cherry is all so prominent along with some vanilla and honey. The booze isn't shy but the overall effect is pretty mellow for the ABV. Overall this a treat and a fairly priced one at $50 for 750ml. Definitely worth seeking out. How Free Will continues to fly under the radar is beyond me, they are killing it.

Per Free Will Brewing: Our most complex creation. Batch number two is a new blend of stock aged for multiple years, even more time this time, in many types of barrels, utilizing a unique fermentation technique along the way, with multiple yeast strains and sugar additions. All these years spent in so many different barrels has allowed the base beer to pick up so many unique nuances from the various spirits along the way, and the longer this beer ages - oxidation and the way it interplays with big beers like this comes more and more into focus.

Per me: This is essentially a budget (comparatively speaking, anyway - this was anything but cheap) version of Sam Adam's Utopias. Which I think is pretty cool. Due to scarcity and (especially) cost, it's unlikely that I'll ever get my hands on a bottle of Utopias. This seems as good a consolation as folks like me will get. Anyway, I'm imbibing from a glencairn whisky glass 'cuz that seems appropriate. Call me a cunt if you must.

Zero head, but I believe this was bottled still so you can re-cork it (yes there's a cork) and enjoy for months or years to come. Which is what I intend to do. Anyway, no head but it does have some serious alcohol legs. The body is the color of a brown ale or maybe even a lighter porter. Smells HYOOGE. I'm glad they don't actually list all the different barrels and such they used to create this. Sometimes it's fun to guess. So here goes: there's definitely a big phat-assed bourbon barreled aged stout in here. Ralphius? I dunno. I think that's only like 15% ABV. I'm way overthinking this already. What I smell is marshmallow and vanilla and fudgy brownie. But it doesn't smell overly sweet. It's very boozy, but that's also not over-done. It smells nice; nowhere near as crazy as I expected. Tastes... wow. It tastes like a completely different animal than it smells. What the hell is that? I want to to say port wine, but I've only ever had that once. There's definitely a wine barrel involved somewhere, though. It plays well with all the other stuff going on. And there's a lot. So much that I'm a bit overwhelmed. The lack of carbonation is also throwing me a bit, but I don't dislike that aspect. Just unaccustomed is all. There's a big cherry cordial note. Lotsa vanilla. Dark hot chocolate powder. The booziness isn't overwhelming. Finishes super dry and woody. Yeah, I dunno. Not blown away or anything, but this is really cool. And fun. I'm going to stop overanalyzing and just sit back and enjoy it as this is already far more characters than I've ever tapped out for a review.