Sted Sarandos
Breakside Brewery - SE Taproom

Breakside’s feel, balance, and flavor are unmatched in their barrel program. Fort George also shows up but these folks have developed something imo unmatched. Delivering similar quality to Side Project at often 1/3 the price.

Walnut studded fudge… ornate old whiskey… hop and malt endless balance and complexity. Memorable. Worth searching for. Exquisite

22-ounce bottle purchased at the Breakside taproom in Beaverton, OR. No date stamp, but the label identifies this as a 2026 vintage. Enjoyed in a Fort George Festival of Dark Arts tasting glass (mini snifter).

Look:
The beer is opaque to the light in my phone, only revealing its deep brown color at the thinnest edge where the beer meets the glass. An aggressive pour yields a finger of dark brown foam that looks substantial but quickly contracts to a burly ring.

Smell:
The nose is hot with alcohol and gives off lots of rich chocolate, sweet bourbon, whiskey, and oak. There's also a wealth of spices, mostly cinnamon with a little clove and ginger.

Taste:
The flavor is intense, leading with dark chocolate, caramel, and roasted nuts crusted with burnt sugar. Bourbon and oak follow, backed up by cinnamon, coffee liqueur, nutmeg, walnuts, Brazil nuts, orange peel, molasses, and a brief flourish of prunes, raisins, and salty licorice. An elegant bitterness lingers in the finish, nestled in a bed of whiskey and brownie batter.

Feel:
Full-bodied and notably viscous with a somewhat oily texture. It has moderate carbonation which is made more prickly by impressive alcohol heat.

Overall:
This is a beast. Big sweetness, a huge cast of flavors, and a formidable boozy kick. That said, it holds together well despite its excesses, and I already like it more than the last 2 barrel-aged stouts from Breakside. (It might be the nocino barrel. I do like the way Breakside's big beers get along with nocino flavors.) It would do well with less alcohol heat, so I plan to set aside a bottle or two for future Cellaruary events.