Against Interpretation
Breakside Brewery - SE Taproom

interesting to review a beer that purposefully and intelligently asks not to be analyzed, so i will try to be general and descriptive rather than deeply analytical, this is a pleasure driven experience mission, and it is a successful one, as enormous as any of the impressive range of breakside barrel aged huge dark beers, of which there are so many now, always a treat to engage, this feels impossibly viscous, is black as night, and leggy in the glass, doesnt even rinse clean on the first go, gnarly. heavy in every way, tons of wood and barrel char, maybe more than just bourbon in play, like there is a possible earthy rye aspect among the richer vanilla and sweetness, but enough roast to power over a lot of that specificity, which is cool, this thing is a locomotive. lots of over extracted espresso, molasses, and even smoke, i love all the depth this has, abyssal, mariana trench level depth, but its not insanely bitter, there is balance here, and at temperature its even more compelling, not overly boozy for how strong it is, and teasing sexy vanilla, high end natural process coffee, and old school black licorice. there is a lot more that could be said, and knowing the details of the beer and the blend would have the drinker looking for different elements, but as a purely sensory thing where its just meant for enjoyment, it slaps, and i think craft beer in the northwest could use a little bit more of that. leave it to these guys to under promise and overdeliver to such a degree, real special stuff, among their biggest and most robust in a lot of ways, fantastic, even if only drinkable in small amounts...

Enjoyed on tap at Breakside Beaverton, in a tulip glass.

Look:
The darkest dark chocolate brown, completely opaque with a pile of tan bubbles that coalesce into a disk of dense foam that persists down to the second half of the glass. No lacing, but great legs.

Smell:
Dark chocolate and bourbon. A detailed sniff includes dark chocolate cake batter, chocolate milk, toasted walnuts, chocolate buttercream icing. A cocktail of liquid brownies and lots of booze.

Taste:
Much like the smell: dark chocolate and bourbon. Devils food cake batter and salted chocolate chip cookies against a backdrop of bourbon. As it warms, and as I adjust to the payload of alcohol, I get salt, cookie dough, toasted brown bread, butterscotch, roasted mixed nuts, chocolate ganache. Every sip is a study of neat bourbon and melted chocolate chips, with carbonation. It displays less of the molasses character that appears in every other Breakside bourbon-barrel-aged stout. (Or maybe it's just harder to pull it out from all that chocolate and bourbon.)

Feel:
Full-bodied, creamy and oily. Carbonation is mellow but insistent, and it exacerbates the powerful alcohol burn. (As I write this, Against Interpretation is the 2nd strongest beer Breakside has ever made. And it shows.)

Overall:
At the risk of repeating myself, this beer has two things to say: bourbon and dark chocolate. Sometimes it uses the phrasing "an impressive amount of bourbon barrel character, imposed on brownie batter." Towards the end it resorts to "booze and fudge." It is an impressive but ultimately tiring beer, and not one of the better barrel-aged stouts from Breakside.