Bruery 2014 RS/HS Allocations

New American Oak is supposed to be part of the Preservation Society's Q2 allocation. They could end up swapping it out if they choose not to release NAO, but the plan has definitely been to release bottles. As far as Tequila, someone mentioned they were doing QC/QA on it to decide if it was worth releasing...rumor, but wouldn't surprise me since all of the other variants have been released in one form or another, while Tequila has been absent from both draft lists and allocations.

 

yea i had forgotten that nao was supposed to be part of the preservation society allocations, i do though feel that since tequila hasnt shown up anywhere that they either dont think its ready yet or feel its not up to par

 

Sipping a bottle of Soroboruo right now, purchased one since I wasn't going to be able to get it on tap and was curious to try it, and I definitely won't be ordering anymore. The Melange #1 comparison isn't too far off, although the sourness is far shallower than I recall M#1 being. It has enough sourness that it's evident, but not really enough to treat it as a sour beer. The base wee heavy and bourbon barrel character actually shine through pretty well and seem like they would've made for a nice BA wee heavy, but between the sour aspect and the bacteria thinning the beer out, it doesn't quite work for me.

I'd really like to know if this was intentionally soured, not because I want to castigate the Bruery for another infection, but because it's not well executed and I'm wondering where they were going with it. If it was accidental, just own up to it and either dump it or handle it like FdR/RdF. If this was intentional, I question what the intent was. It doesn't work as a sour, it doesn't work as a wee heavy, and it falls well short of the mark they established for sour/strong ale hybrids.

 

It's really frustrating because I think it would have been a world class Wee Heavy if not infected/ruined.

 

Do the different barrel treatments for Sucre result in different ABVs? Looks like it according to the labels on the store page. Curious if anyone has seen them in person to confirm.

 

I havent seen the labels but it makes perfect sense. How much alcohol gets added to the beer varies greatly depending on how wet and fresh the barrels are. For example, barrels that were freshly emptied and then immediately filled with beer will have a significant amount of residual alcohol in them whereas a barrel that was emptied, stored, shipped and stored again might have quite a bit of evaporation and the staves dry out leading to less spirit impact to the beer.

 

That is all true. I always figured that the different spirits would impart different alcohol levels, but I don't think I've ever seen the differences displayed so clearly on the labels.

 

Bourbon: 16.9%
Port: 15.1%
Madera: 14.7%
Rye: 16.3%
Rum: 17.5%
Congac: 16.1%
Brandy: 15.1%

 

You left out Rum (the booziest) at 17.5% and New American Oak at 14.5% (the lowest abv).

 

That's a pretty significant alcohol contribution on the Rum variant. Either the starting ABVs for the variants weren't equal (ie, they could've cherry picked the strongest batches of Anniversary to go into Rum barrels), or there was a lot of leftover spirits in those barrels. I don't know exactly what standard cask strength is for rum, but at 60% ABV as a guess, the barrels would've had to be ~7% full to take a 14.5% ABV beer to 17.5% ABV.

 

Crap I forgot about New American Oak, do you think these will keep in the fridge with a bottle stopper until it is released?

 

Nope. You could still do a side-by-side at the Bruery for most of the variants. They have NAO, Rum, Bourbon, Rye, Port, and Madeira. You just wouldn't be able to compare the cognac or brandy (or tequila).

 

Just saw a label image of S.H.I.T. A little odd that this got teased since it won't be released until December.



I'm excited for this, but on a strictly nitpicking level I wish the ABV were a little lower.. around 8-9%.

 

Wow, I know they said it'd be a lower abv version of Black Tuesday, but I didn't think it would be so marginally lower. That being said, I'm quite looking forward to it.

 

It's right in line with beers like Darkness, Abraxas, and other name quality non-BA stouts. I wonder what the ABV of the base beer was. It's at least feasible to tackle this beer over a long evening if you wanted to. This will be perfect to split rather than needing 4 people over to drown a bottle. Hopefully they have a large amount of this. Seeing as they don't mention any adjuncts, I'd love to get enough to cellar some as well as enjoy this winter. Definitely excited for this release.

 

are the cognac, noa, brandy up for sale?

 

Cognac and Portuguese Brandy are Hoarders-exclusive, and not for sale - 2 and 1 included in the membership, respectively.

New American Oak hasn't gone on sale yet, only available on tap right now.

 

right i knew they were HS exclusive just wondering when they were being released.

 

They've been available for pickup/shipping for a week or two.

 

7% difference in ABV is marginal? I guess if you were expecting half the ABV of BT, that might seem marginal but I think that's a pretty big difference.