Cellar Reviews (2020)

Todays second vintage beer is a 2016 Wicked Weed Famboos Morte. This is a fantastic beer fresh, Ive never had one this far out but I’ve had others in the Morte series aged substantially and they’ve aged great. So let’s see where this one is at.

Pours a clear, light copper colored with a large white head that has good retention.

Aromas of raspberry of course, also lots of peach and some white grapes. Pretty substantial pungent Brett funk. No much tart/sourness on the nose. Taste is notbaly different than the nose, it’s much sweet and has more tart characters. Lots of sweet berry characters up front, like the nose there’s big peach characters. Tart sourness in the finish is definitely notable but not as sour as many wild ales; funk notes add to the palate profile but are subtle which I prefer. Oak and champagne like white grapes round out the flavor profile. Overall, it’s a very good beer but I don’t love how it’s developed overtime. Some of the aggressive sourness has faded, and as the sourness has faded the fruit characters stand out a bit too prominently. Still very much enjoyed but I preferred this one fresh.

4.5/4.25/4.25/4.25/4.25

(Original/fresh review: 4.5/4.75/4.75/4.5/4.75)

 

I got one in the cellar! Although I think it’s only a 2019, so might be a while before I pop it!

 

Jackie O's stouts are watery thin. The brewer himself attests to this is claims its intended. I personally don't get it. I used to like their stuff but as my tastes have matured I find most of it to just be sugar water.

 

Huh, interesting. My only first hand experience is with Oil of Aphrodite (which admittedly has walnut oil added) and it had a great body.
Brad Clark ( I think he was their barrel program manager?) just started a small membership only ba brewery out in Santa Cruz and the discussion around that had people commenting on Jo's quality. I may have made a wrong assumption but do you know if their body has changed over time?

 

I'm not a local, but I've had plenty of Jackie O's stouts many times & have never found them watery or thin. I suspect just like IPAs, there's been a perception shift. They are no Black Tuesday or Anchorage stout, that is true.

The primary thing that's changed over time is they no longer have massive infection issues. I stopped trading for Jackie O's after multiple bad experiences, but a friend in the area persuaded me to take a couple of bottles more recently. Many of their stouts are top shelf.

 

Appervation b1 was amazing. But most of their stouts taste 90% the same with slight tweaks. Very bcbs like without the mouthful. Throw a few different novelty ingredients at them and they taste tweaked but all similar. They're not bad, don't get me wrong. Its just they all taste like a tweaked around BA dark apparition (which I agree is a solid beer, just thin).

I consider black Tuesday equally as thin. A truly remarkable beer at 20% with such lack of viscosity.

 

Tonight’s beer is a 2015 CCB The Dark Woods, self described as “a dark old ale brewed with molasses and aged on wood”. I don’t think it ever took off, but it was an interesting idea for a series of beers. Per my original notes:

“a series that will have a completely different recipe/style each year, with a focus on wood aging....the 2015 vintage used a combination of four different toast levels of White Oak ...the base beer is a dark old ale that is inspired by the end of the harvest and the beginning of Winter days to come."


When drinking fresh I liked it but wasn’t blown away. I did think it did a good job accentuating the wood but was mostly wood and booze. Let’s see what 5 years has done to it.


Pours very dark mahogany when held to light, when sitting in a glass on the table it looks almost milk chocolate colored. Head is dense with good retention. Aroma is huge with tons of nice old ale characters including caramel, burnt sugar, dark fruits, a bit of spice. Decent amount of oak but it has subsided, and the booze has mellowed out substantially on the nose to allow for the other characters to shine. Great aroma. Taste is very mellow but quite flavorful. Caramel, dark fruits, pretty prominent bitterness, more oak on the taste than was present on the nose. Nice flavors but doesn’t live up to the nose. Mouthfeel is silky smooth, booze has mellowed amazingly, just insanely drinkable. Overall, a very tasty beer that IMO has definitely improved with age.


4.25/4.5/4/4.5/4.25

(Original/fresh review: 4.25/3.75/4/4/4)

 

It’s been a while since I drank a Black Tuesday but I certainly don’t remember it being thin. Motor oil viscosity, no; but I wouldn’t say thin.

Thinness can certainly ruin a beer, but I also think over viscosity can really limit a beers drinkability. From what I remember BT really was in that sweet spot.

I think it’s about time for me to seek out some BT. It’s been too long.

 

The standard of beer thickness has definitely shifted in my decade of beer enjoyment. Some of the modern stouts are so thick as.to be almost undrinkable to me. Lots of people love that though, obviously.

@Fordcoyote15 , how would you characterize your personal stout thickness standards and preferences? I've never had BT but have heard the sentiment that its thinner than people love expect.

 

I consider against the grain bo & luke mouthfeel the pinnacle.

ten fidy, even more Jesus, barrel aged expedition stout all are also great.

To me a thick stout is going to develop a dense head. When I pour a stout and the head is large coca cola sized bubbles its definitely going to miss the mark. When it looks more like the froth on a whipped cappuccino I know the stouts foing to.have some substance.

Black tuesday and Jackie os stouts don't develop much head unless poured somewhat more aggressively. And when doing so its not dense. Theyre also going to look much more translucent when swirled. No doubt BT looks hot and sticky but it could honestly pass for an imperial brown ale when swirled.

The feel of BT and jackie os stouts, to me, is just so one dimensional. To me, sugar content/sweetness doesn't give it mouthfeel. Its like whole milk verse skim milk (sugar does nothing for thickness, they contain the same).

I'm no brewer and not sure what attributes to the chewy feel I desire. I just know that increased ABV doesn't necessarily correlate to increased thickness (at least perceived). To me, jackie o's stouts are sticky and sweet yes, but not dense. YMMV.

 

Sounds like we're on the same page as far as stout body goes. I'll be interested to try some.more Jackie os stuff and see but given that answer I trust your palate to line up well with mine.

There seem to be all kinds of tricks for achieving that full body and there seems to be exceptions to all of them as well. I've heard the thin BT comment often enough to accept it but it still blows my mind because the SHIT beers from bruery are very full bodied and right up.there with the best in my.experience.

Then people talk about the value of.extended barrel aging (and its attendant evaporation) but I tend to find ba stouts thinner than their nonba versions often enough, and Bo & Luke advertises a 3 month barrel time so that's clearly not necessary.

I'm curious what folks thoughts are on the relationship.between the body of a ba stout and its aging potential. I tend to assume that the fuller bodied stouts will have more legs (hence my.assumption about Jackie os, based on an apparently uncharacteristic sample of one) but I know BT is well regarded for aging well, though that astronomical abv can't hurt there. Anyone else have thoughts or observations on if/how those aspects are related?

 

Had my first woot stout ever, a 2020 draft pour. It was on the thin side for me, solid pecan, maple and bourbon flavor. Do you find it gets thicker, and fuller flavor, as it ages? Central Waters has thin body stouts, but are packed with flavor. They are among the few with thin body stouts I buy regularly, but I prefer a medium to thick stout in the Bourbon County / Revolution Deep Woods style. I do find some stouts a bit too thick, typically pastry / maple syrup stouts heavy on the adjuncts.

I believe this was my first Stone Stout, so nothing else to judge it by in their catalog.

 

I was curious about all this talk of central waters thinness so I went and checked my reviews of them. In all 3 that I've reviewed here I noted the thin body but I seemed to enjoy it. That jibes with my memory of always enjoying the rare CW bottle I encounter.

After reading @Fordcoyote15 's response above (where he basically nailed my favorite stouts in his list of top performers) it did occur to me that I may just have more tolerance than some for thinness in stouts. Ol' Raspy is a favorite of mine but its.not because of the body. And that's probably a pretty thin stout many peoples mind

 

I generally agree with you that BA variants seem to often be thinner than their standard non-BA counterparts. Although I can’t even remember the last time I did a side by side tasting of a horizontal like that so that may be partly recall bias.

I will say that there’s pretty clearly NOT a correlation between BA and ABV and increased thickness. Almost none of the ultra high ABV beers I’ve had have been particularly thick, although I also haven’t noted them to be thin by any means. Granted those aren’t even always stouts, and tend to come from a select handful of breweries who brew these ultra high ABV beers, so that may be sampling bias. But certainly you can achieve an ultra high ABV without having a melted tootsie roll in a glass.

 

Tonight’s beer is a Scotch Barrel Aged Scotch Silly, I actually am not certain of the age on this one as it was sent over as an extra in a trade. It does however, look fairly old and I also don’t think they release the scotch barrel aged variant every year as it seems they rotate barrel types (scotch, bourbon, even chardonnay which sounds interesting). Anyways, taking everything into account my GUESS is that this is a 2017 beer.


Pours a very dark brown, almost mocha colored but with copper hues when held to light. Tan head builds than dissipates fairly quickly. Aroma is big and quite sweet. Tons of dark fruits, fig and dates predominately, some raisin. I also get caramel, subtle oak but otherwise not many barrel characters. Taste is more spice than the nose implied, especially upfront, then sweet notes come on the back end with big caramel. Dark fruits are present but much more subtle than the nose. Some bitterness rounds out the profile. I get almost no scotch characters, which admittedly I don’t hate as I’m not huge into the peat-like notes. It drinks more like a quad than a scotch ale. Overall, this is a very nice beer. Would I have guessed it’s a scotch ale aged in Scotch barrels? Absolutely not, but it fits my personal palate preference better that way.

4.25/4.25/4/4/4.25
(Original/fresh review: n/a)

 

Tonight’s beer is a 2016 Westbrook/Evil Twin Mini Growler Stout. Pours a jet black, dense dark tan head with good retention. Great aromas consisting of cocoa, leather, vanilla, cinnamon, charred oak, some herbaceous notes, and tobacco. Just a ton going on on the nose and this beer has no adjuncts or barrel aging. Taste is equally complex, but with more sweetness than the nose. Maple syrup like sugary sweetness up front, with roastiness and subtle bitterness on the finish. I also get some dark fruit, bitter bakers cocoa, char. Really fantastic. Mouthful is full bodied and a bit chewy in a good but not overpowering way. Overall, this is a stellar non-BA/non-adjunct stout that has aged tremendously. Based on my notes, when fresh this was a leather and tobacco bomb (I described it fresh as “the biggest leather and tobacco notes Ive ever had in a beer”). These characters, although still present, have mellowed substantially and it has allowed other, sweeter and more subtle characters to come out thus making this much more complexed and balanced. Excellent.


4.5/4.5/4.5/4.25/4.5
(Original/fresh review: 4/4.5/4/4/4)



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I was given a bottle of 10 year old bottle of New Glarus Two Women lager from a friends cellar. He "accidentally" aged it ten years and wanted nothing to do with opening it because he does not like lagers at all. This Two Women lager was the original pilot batch that was sold in the 500ml "R&D" bottles.

Amazingly, this beer pours out a full 2 fingers of head from an aggressive pour. The beer appears to be a darker copper color than two women usually is. It was also noteworthy that this bottle had absolutely no traces of sediment in the bottle, suspended in the beer, or caked to the bottom of the bottle.

The beer smelled of bready malts. Also surprisingly enough it did not smell stale , old or significantly oxidized. Not smelling any yeast or hops in the beer. It definitely has a one noted malty aroma.

Taste is similar to the smell. No yeast or hop profile in this beer. Slight sweetness of honey and bread. The taste is overall dull & bland if that makes sense. Does not taste stale or spoiled or heavily oxidized either.

Minimal texture as expected when compared to a fresh bottle of Two Women lager. No crispness or clean texture from the carbonation, but it had way more carbonation than I was expecting it to have. It was between a light and moderate level of carbonation & it was leaning towards the higher end of lightly carbonated. I poured the beer into a glass with an etched bottom and the bubbles kept rocking the whole time the beer was in the glass. crazy stuff.

This was mostly a beer experiment and my curiosity got the best of me... Was curious to see what would happen to a lager that sat in a bottle for over 10 years. Especially from a brewer like Dan Carey who makes some very authentic German lagers from that little town of New Glarus. Overall, it shows me that Dan has the ability to brew a lager that will hold up to the test of time (for over ten years anyway) and not be completely disgusting. Don't get me wrong, I did not drink the whole bottle... but I did have 4 to 6 oz "for science". The drain drank the rest! I would even go as far to say I would actually drink a 10 year old bottle of New Glarus Two Women Lager over a bud light or miller light!

Figured you cellar dwellars would enjoy reading about this! Cheers!

 

We do, but photos man, photos!