Minutiae (2025): Malört
Phase Three Brewing Company

On tap at Mortalis Brewing in Avon, NY.

This one pours a very dark black color, with a small head, and not much lacing.

This one smells like dark chocolate, licorice, espresso, oak, cedar, pine, and grapefruit rind.

Minutiae is such a heavy duty, complex, and flavorful base, but I was still convinced that the Malort was going to dominate here. Every time anyone tries to make a cocktail that incorporates Malort as an ingredient, they fail. They’re hoping the sort of bitter and citrusy notes are what come through, rather than the tire factory conflagration notes, but it never works. But…but, this actually kind of works. Minutiae is a dense and delicious beer, and the Malort barreling – 44 months (!) of it, adds some interesting very woody and bitter notes that play well against the deep dark chocolate, coffee, and vanilla notes of the stout. It’s super oaky, with a sharp but pleasant finish. Now, of course the regular Minutiae is much better than this, the Malort adds an interesting note to this, but I’m not going to pretend that it actually improves it. If anybody ever tries to convince you that Malort ever improved anything, they are lying to you.

This one is quite thick and rich, but not very boozy. It finishes a bit sharply and bitterly, but that is to be expected given the evil barrel that this was laid down in.

I’ve always described Malort as drinking a burning tire filled with pencil lead – this stout experience is like that, but if then a giant vat of barrel aged stout mercifully extinguished the flames from your body, saving your life.