Apple Brandy barrel-aged beers

Its on tap in the brewery now, no bottles in the future. Had it at week of logic and was not very impressed - not up to their standards.

 

From my local standpoint Vintage Brewing's most common barrel aged beer is Apple Brandy Dedication. Bottles from the past few releases shouldn't be hard to get a local to part with since they got some small distribution. Holds up quite well too, drank my last 2012 & 2014 bottles this year and they were great.

 

I still have a few AL Calvados bottles. I think it was the first apple brandy from Jester King. While I got decent barrel character from it, I feel like it never really messed well with the base beer. I vastly preferred AB noir, even though it's a different style.

 

Night Shift AB Lechedor. Really enjoyed it and I think the limit was 4pp (at least it was 2 years ago).

 

I really hope Gabe did a silent/day of announcement.

 

Prairie AB Noir had been easy to procure in the past. Not sure what production is like now.

 

Not here. One of my favorite beers of all time and have a tough time getting them.

 

Right on. When I was in TX it would cycle through and it would hang out for a while. That was two years ago now.

 

Still waiting... “soon” - whatever that means.

 

AB Noir was flat-out amazing. It's only dropped once in MN right when they started distributing here, & it was everywhere. I kept buying one or two every time I saw it & ended up with over a dozen. But people have caught up to how good Prairie stouts are, so I suspect next time around they'll vanish in a blink.

 

Yeah, I think it's way underrated as for as BA ratings go. I only scored 1 last year as it was 1pp at my local place near my work. My local place near my house doesn't really get Prairie stuff and I'm too old to run around town asking for it from store owners I don't know(never just on the shelf).
I actually had Pirate Bomb for the first time recently and it has a similar background flavor to it as AB Noir, not sure how to describe it, but it's something that Bourbon Paradise doesn't have.

Do you know when it hits next?

 

Sadly, no idea. I have some vague memory of Prairie being unable to source barrels for it & putting off the next release indefinitely - but that might also be a memory of one of 633 other releases I've pondered.

 

I think I actually know what you mean by this. I think it's like a sweet sugary note (almost like apple skin or something? but more like coconut in the case of the rum barrel?) right on the finish that I'm guessing comes from the rum and apple brandy barrels. Have you had Pirate Noir and did you get the same thing from it?

 

I have not had Pirate Noir. I belive the only BA Prairie beers I've had are AB Noir, BP and Pirate Bomb.

Bourbon Paradise did not have that desirable(to me) flavor character that the other two had.

 

Deal with DeMolen is out in bottles and on tap at the brewery (drinking one as I type this). Sounds like it should last for around a week. Heavy, heavy on the apple brandy. Delicious but expensive AF.

 

Prairie was able to source some Apple Brandy barrels but I don’t believe it was enough to do AB Noir again. Fred’s Blend Batch 2 was released to the Dawgs and was a blend of bourbon and apple brandy barrels.

 

I'd think they would be doing AB Noir again this year or early next year. They just offered up 70 Apple Brandy barrels to the Dawgs for the single barrels (instead of rum) this year.

So, also in late January or so, you'll probably want to be ISO some of those AB single barrel Prairie Dawg beers.

 

I was quite surprised to see the AB barrels as an option and no rum barrels. Hopefully AB Noir does happen in addition to all the Dawg AB Single Barrel beers that will be out there.

 

Are dawg beers only aged 6ish months?

 

Not 100% sure on this but they have stated the beer is already in barrels. I’m inclined to believe it’s more considering all the beers typically exhibit a good amount of barrel character.