New Beer Sunday (week 560)

Well Hello NBS friends and fiends!!!
Maximum Respect to the dynamic duo of Dave & Maria for the team effort. Weather here is cooler again, but bone dry air makes you pray for rain. Feels like fall, winds are blowing, sky is clear, and the moon has been stunning for a few nights now. This helps us remind ourselves that amid horror we must remember there is so much more beauty in this world. We must stand up to darkness, and refuse to let it command our thoughts. As the days pass, I'm sure we'll hear more and more stories of heroism, love, selflessness, and sacrifice. And these will win out over bloody headlines that weak people seek.
Anyway, I liked the idea of The Abyss Tasting so...

Well, I've had The Abyss a few times, a few vintages, some on tap, some from bottles. My experiences have ranged from, "Hmm, pretty good", to, "I don't get the hype."

The Abyss from Deschutes, 2013 Vintage (first time for this vintage, so I think it counts for NBS)

The usual, dark as night pour. Less than a finger of lazy cocoa powder colored foam that retreats and laces like a chocolate malt. It's a beauty to behold. Smells of baking chocolate, light whiskey barrel, prune, leather, brown sugar, dates, & diminutive wisps of vanilla. This is the best smelling Abyss I can remember. Warming....Ok now tasting. Well. no chocolate. Earthy roast, some leather, tobacco, oak. Kinda deep oak. Hmm, it's bringing some slight alcohol warmth in now. And a hint of red wine barrel...guessing in the range between cabarnet sauvignon and pinot noir, but just guessing. Finishes an earthy, peaty roasted leather meets licorice and burnt brown sugar, but eventually ends with tobacco.

Complex for sure. Letting them age definitely seems to smooth the edges. I'll be curious how the '09 and '12 I have will fare. If the flavor followed more of the into with the nose, I'd like this one a lot more. I find the complex palette of flavors to make for a fairly abstract painting that i don't appreciate as much as many folks. Not bad, but I'm toward meh.

 

Deschutes: Abyss 2014


Wow just amazing stuff. Aged at room temp since purchase.The Nose is of oak and molasses and dark fruits. The taste is of black cherries molasses oak and vanilla. The mouth feel is full and sticky with a red wine like finish, with a slight alcohol heat. To sum it up this is a amazing beer that I plan on buying multiple bottles of every year from now on. So glad I have another I have been letting sit in the back of the fridge I will hang onto it for quite awhile longer just to see where this adventure goes. So far this is a cellar king.

 

Where did you get that shirt - I have a Himalayan and 2 Persians - they are my best drinking pals. I must have this shirt !! LOL

 

Sorry to have missed you all yesterday, but Saturday's bad beer tasting was five hours of high test, infected, expired, and bad-from-the-start beer, followed y'day by 7 hours of high test bad-from-the-start work, followed by 13 hours of high test wonderful sleep. Glad to see you all had the opposite beer experience One thing drinking awful beer does is make you appreciate the good beer we have abundantly surrounding us in today's America. Cheers! to you, and hope to be back and enjoying new beer with y'all next Sunday.

 

Good morning everyone and have a good week. In the last post, I noticed Cavedave said you all and later typed y'all. This dialect is like a virus, but effective! And cheers.

 

I try to switch them up. It's a great writing technique to pay attention to pronouns and switch 'em up much as possible. Cheers!

 

Once infected, the word works wonders.

 

How did I forget to post this yesterday here?!?!? Shame on me!

2014 Deschutes The Abyss

Aroma-cherry, dates, figs, red wine wrapped completely with malts, molasses, chocolate, and some bourbon
Taste-dark fruits hit first with vigor but then roasted malts, molasses and chocolate slam through while the barrels creep in towards the back end and a distinct wine-like aspect accompanies it. As the beer warmed up the molasses and chocolate got stronger as well as the barrel flavors and the dark fruits carried throughout the palate.
Overall-I was happy to finally have this beer and BIG thanks to @JayWhitson for putting together a mass tasting of it so that I had a set date to open my bottle. I have another that I will be cellaring for a while but could certainly open it now and enjoy it again

 

Blue Cheese with "big" beers is one of the joys in life. In addition to RIS big Belgians often work well to as do barleywines.

 

Indeed! I really enjoyed it. Thanks for the other recommendations.

 

I am glad you enjoyed it - I am always hesitant about recommending beers given the subjectivity of taste.