Firestone Walker Double Jack Reborn: Leo vs Ursus Doublus

It's about impossible here to find 2 month old FW here, unfortunately it's more like 5-6. SN beers sell well here too and at a good price, and I don't ever remember having a problem with any of their beers, ever before their NC expansion. The local beers are so good right now that about the only Cali IPAs I buy are Mikkeller SD, but I'd guess Stone and SN also rotate pretty well. Tough market for retailers to carry so much varied inventory.

 

I'm going to buy some.should be good.

 

A two month beer isn't old per say, but if the hops are starting to fade a bit it's obviously not optimal. It's a competative market I don't need to pay for an ok beer when I can usually find beers 10 days old. I think it's fair to say the hoppy Pils like Urquell age very well, but I'd also bet it's better at 10 days old vs 4 months too.

 

Chicago had a problem with that a few years back. It’s gotten way better lately. Most FW is arriving in 2-3 weeks after canning now. Hopefully your local distributor and FW rep can figure it out.

 

I love Union Jack, fresh DJ was so damn good when it was fresh. It's fairly new here and it sold well up front, but I see it sliding backwards a bit, not quite as old as Knee Deep who also makes great beers, but the turnover is slow. The problem is a repeating cycle, you have aging beers guys like me won't buy, but I know how great they can be, and you have guys experimenting they buy it and at 5-6 months old he doesn't like it. He'll never buy it again, and he doesn't know it's because it's older stock. Just a horrendous cycle I'm sure most retailers and distributors are trying to figure out. There's such a glut of hoppy beers out there right now I couldn't begin to figure out how to maximize the inventory.

 

Drinking my first can tonight. Nostalgia is a glass.

 

I feel like DIPAs age better than regular IPAs, usually because I can still focus on the malt and it's probably hopped to shit anyway. I give them 2 or 3 months before I worry, and sometimes at a year or so develops into a tasty Barleywine. So yes I'm looking forward to this however it comes.

 

I didn't get the nostalgia feeling other than it was a FW IIPA. I though the hop profile was more modern and it was less sweet, finishing very dry. Still loved it though.

 

Tasted great. Odd how low the distro felt for this beer. Needs to be brought back as a staple but I kind of liked this as you knew it’d be fresh versus the problem with double jack before and really all FW beers was the lack of freshness.

 

That’s interesting.

My thoughts were that it was an updated hop profile but a little more sweet.

And to be honest, it was well made but I think 9.5 was a little too big.

It was still very easy to drink, but just a tad to sweet. I think I like Fortem and Adversus better because of the lower alcohol content.

Doublus is well made, and a good deal at 9.5. I just don’t want 9.5% percent beers these days. I hope the Leo v Ursus series gets back to new experimental beers around 8%.

Maybe this is the difference of me being 23 vs 29 years old but I think 9.5% ended up being too big. Especially in 16oz cans.

 

In addition to and echoing the post above, I could swear that this beer is more than 9.5%.
I regularly drink 10%+ stouts but just cant seem to hang with doublus any time that I've had it. I just finished the last can of my 4 pack yesterday and was feeling drunk half way through the pint. Anyone else feel the same?

Either way I thought it is a damn tasty beer, just a bit boozy. Likely wont pick up another 4 pack for that reason.