Twin Cities Bottle Hunt - 2019

I assume he works for Surly in some capacity.

 

I know Surly changed the recipe for 2018 to make it sweeter, probably because they saw the demand for sweet diabeetus pastry stouts.

I do think that a sweeter RIS could be great if it spends enough time in whiskey barrels, actually I think it would be perfect for a BA stout that is heavy on the booziness from the barrels. I am going to pick up a couple bottles and find out for myself.

 

If you didn't like the 2018 Darkness, then you're probably not going to like the Barrel-Aged version either as it's the same base beer, although, I will say that barrel-aging can add that "something special" that can round-out or balance some of the flavors in a beer like Darkness (not that you don't already know this.) For me, the barrel (specifically the vanillan and the oak tannins) make Darkness more chocolate than cocoa and the beneficial oxidation smooths out the roast character in an agreeable way.

That said, come down to the Beer Hall when it taps and grab a sample first if you're cautious. I don't blame you. Your palate is your own. You might not like what I like.

I have only been with Surly a short time, (about 15 months) but I've had plenty of Darkness both fresh and aged in my life, and I don't think a week has passed since I got here that I haven't tasted Darkness in some form. I can solidly say, the recipe did not change. The beer attenuated as normal and the hopping rate is identical. Seasonal hop variances can have an impact, but drinking blind, side-by-side with the previous year's vintage, (granted with the minimum amount of comparable age as I don't own a time machine...yet.) 2018 didn't stand out as statistically different.

 

Just hoping to get close to that '15 BA magic back in my glass.

 

And how do you "know" this?
I've seen the brew logs, the analytical sheets, and the sensory data that says otherwise. I have also been designing, brewing, branding, and selling beers for quite some time, and one truism is that: if you have a popular product with a lot of brand equity, you don't do things to change it. Essentially, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

I'm not trying to pick a fight, or be overly flippant, but conjecture like that has a way of becoming "true" if left unchallenged.

 

Correct. VP of Marketing, or similar title. Previously at Sierra Nevada.

 

I believe 2015 was in barrels about 6 weeks total? Not kidding.

 

That's what I heard. Also High West barrels which isn't available anymore if you aren't Ballast Point.

 

Has Surly changed its vintage year reference policy? I thought that the barrel-aged Darkness was always referenced by the year the beer was brewed, not the year the beer was bottled, such that the beer Surly is releasing now would be called BA Darkness 2018.

That was 2014 Darkness (harpy label), right? The bottled version was a blend of barrel-aged and non-barrel-aged, and the barrels were second-use, if I recall correctly. Weren't the barrels employed merely to free up tank space? There was no bottled purely non-barrel-aged version that year, only kegs.

2015 (bat label) "spent over three months aging in Rye Whiskey barrels from High West, a distillery in Park City, Utah." I believe most if not all of the "High West" barrels were actually standard MGP (Indiana) 2-year rye barrels, the same stuff they sell for cheap to Bulleit, George Dickel, Templeton, etc. (i.e., nothing special, not that barrels that contained better whiskey tend to result in better barrel-aged beer; I've seen no evidence of that). @BillManley, please let me know if the internal word within Surly is something different (I know that was before your time).

For the record, I'll note that I personally tend to prefer only a modicum of barrel-aging in imperial stouts to a long period of aging. Sours are a different story. Then again, I tend to prefer no barrel-aging for imperial stouts at all, especially for a hops-forward imperial stout like Darkness (at least prior to 2018, when, for whatever reason, the hops took a back seat to sugar).

 

Right on the Vintage. '16 & '17 Darkness were bottled the following January '17 & '18... '14 (No regular Darkness that year only the blend BA version) & '15 IIRC was bottled December of the same year of the October release of Regular Darkness This year's 2018 is almost 3 months later in April still should be 2018 BA Darkness. With out a doubt i will be buying this latest release of BA Darkness.

 

Also looks like the BO date is 031319 for just released bottles.

 

The bottles releasing this week are officially 2018 Barrel Aged Darkness. 2019 Darkness hasn't been brewed yet, or put into barrels for that matter.

 

Surly has, in fact, changed the date nomenclature on BA Darkness bottles. The 20XX year releasing the following year was confusing... even within the brewery. We were getting bombarded with questions about which was which (witch!?!)
This most recent release is the 2019 release of BA Darkness. Says so right on the bottle. The date will henceforth be the year the beer is released.

The art format is also changing. We’re now having the one Darkness featured artists create one theme, and do variations on that theme for Darkness, BA Darkness, and Darkness Varient(s).

To your question about the barrels. I’m honestly not sure. I will find out, though, and let you know.

 

Seems like fake news. As for the beer it's exceptional.

 

I have drunken at least 100 bottles of Darkness going back to 2008. Each year I do a vertical with the past 5 vintages to compare. I try to avoid making comments like the one I did about the 2018 Darkness being different, since palates change and the memory isn't as accurate as we'd like to think. HOWEVA, I can say with absolute certainty 2018 Darkness is different from all prior vintages in a way that is more than just the variance in raw materials. I don't say this lightly. The sweetness is front and center and the hop character just isn't there like it has been in every vintage prior to 18. I think most here will agree with me. When I first had it this year I was shocked to be honest, it was like a totally different beer.

Even if I am right and you know it, your position with the company may be preventing you from admitting it.

Also, in regards to your statement about not changing popular brands; pretty sure Abrasive has been tweaked many times (for the better I might add).

 

Completely agree with @pmccallum86. I had two glassed of 2018 Darkness & decided I needed zero more - way, way too sweet without any balancing hops. I don't think I've had less the 20-30 servings of any other year going back to 2008.

That said, if 2017 & 2018 were indeed brewed in exactly the same manner, with exactly the same ingredients, then there's a consistency problem. I loved the 2017, which was a throwback to the Darkness of old: thick, bitter, angry, chocolatey. I didn't like the 2018 at all.

I don't want to start an argument, but to my palate, the 2017 vs. 2018 were wildly different. I can only speculate on the differences, but year-over-year variation of Darkness has been standard since 2007-2008. Sometimes back-to-back years don't taste even vaguely like the same beer.

 

I'll note that Surly's website lists as ingredients in 2015 Darkness "SUGAR: Belgian Candy Syrup, Candi Sugar." It lists those in no other vintage. It lists "moderate" IBU for that vintage and "low" IBU for at least most of the other vintages. It also lists Darkness's ABV as 12% for every vintage, but I know early Darkness (at minimum 2006 Darkness) was more like 9.6% (and 85 IBU, which I wouldn't call "low" or even "moderate"). The website also lists 28° as the OG for some vintages, 29° for others. Todd Haug in the past talked about how regular Darkness gets a "massive" whirlpool hops addition (Simcoe and Amarillo), whereas at least 2015 BA Darkness did not since that effect would be numbed by the barrel-aging.

I think there's been more tinkering with Darkness through the years than Surly lets on, perhaps even internally.

And, yes, fresh 2018 Darkness was WAY sweeter and less hops-forward than was any other vintage. Frankly, it tasted under-attenuated to me. I've heard the same take (at least about the sweetness) generated independently from several other people, and nobody in person has told me that 2018 Darkness tasted as good as ever to them. I had it right at the release (Darkness Eve); perhaps there was batch variation and other batches of the same vintage came out better; the price point is too high and there are too many other good options for me to give a dud beer multiple shots. I may, however, give "2019" BA Darkness a go.

 

I refuse to call it BA Darkness 19. "Barrel Aged" is an adjective describing the beer. What beer is it describing? Darkness 2018. The naming convention has always made sense to me. Because of this, I will be refusing to buy any Surly beer.....until I want to try some Warp Zone.

 

That's what I like... a principled boycott!

 

Yeah, at least before it was consistent with wine vintage naming conventions so that made sense to me.