Abyss

IMO, Black Butte ^3 was outstanding and worth the $25 price. I'm on the fence about the Abyss variants, though.

 

Black Butte3 was tremendous. A big improvement from the 50% Barrel Aged standard version.

As for Abyss, Ive had problems with how bitter/over-roasted it has tasted the past 3 years. I got very little barrel character to the point where I couldnt tell if it had been barrel aged at all. Maybe it needed more time, but everything since the 2012 year hasnt been quite right to me, and doing the verticals only reinforced that. 2010 and 2011 are still very very good.

Two of my friends bought and tasted the Cognac variant and mentioned nothing that it was "tart" or "sour". They said some age would probably help calm it down a bit, but otherwise they really liked it.

Sounds like the Rye Whiskey may be a little more in line with what people traditionally like in a BA stout.

 

For me it was. I loved it. Now I'm sitting on 6 of 'em.

Are you suggesting that the barrel-aging was done differently in earlier years (either different kinds of barrels, or different proportions of the barrels being used)? Isn't Deschutes on record as saying that the recipe for Abyss has not changed over the years?

-- Nathan

 

The labeling has changed; the recipe has not: https://twitter.com/DeschutesBeer/status/172816540792668161

-- Nathan

 

Maybe I overlooked something, but the article linked from Deschutes' tweet doesn't support their assertion. It just says age is good.

 

The tweet was their response to a particular part of the article. They weren't citing the article as evidence, but just providing context for their comment.

There's only so much you can do in 140 characters...

-- Nathan

 

Ah, gotcha. Sorry it's been a long day, and I can't blame it on beer.

 

Hmm. Well, I'm having a tough time finding good pictures of the 2010 and earlier labels, but it's clear that from 2011 on, the description on the label has not changed one iota, not even in terms of barrel percentages. So I think we can at least say that the 2011-2015 process (perhaps a better/clearer term than "recipe") has remained the same. But nobody here is really debating that, and most people with complaints it seems would agree that things changed for them starting at the 2011 release.

I take Deschutes' tweet to mean that the entire process -- not just the recipe for the base beer -- did not change between 2010 and 2011. I could be wrong. But the story that I've pieced together from post archives I've even found on this forum suggests that Deschutes needed to get more specific on the label for the beer between those vintages, perhaps because they expanded distribution into an area where the legal requirements for the label were more strict. So, for example, it was always brewed "with cherry bark and vanilla", but they just didn't bother to mention those things on the labels in the early years even though those elements were always present.

Likewise, I suspect on early labels, they were engaging in some "fuzzy math" when they said that it was "33% aged in oak and oak bourbon barrels". Note that they never said 1/3rd of the beer was aged strictly in bourbon barrels, but that some percentage of that third was just plain oak. If you do the math on the current labels, 6 + 11 + 11 = 28, which is *close* to a third. And if they were just rounding up so that they could call it "a third", it is also conceivable that when they said "oak and and oak bourbon", they were actually using wine barrels the whole time and including both the dry oak and the used wine barrels under the singular term "oak".

But perhaps somebody could ask someone at Deschutes to clarify, and either confirm or squash these rumors once and for all?

-- Nathan

 

I cannot speak to some of the early "2010"s vintages, but the 2015 almost doubled the barrel-aged percentage of the 2014 (and 2013, I think), which I believe, as you note, was around 28% total between the 3 types of barrels. This year, it's 21% bourbon, 21% wine, and 8% standard oak, for 50% overall (I say this confidently despite being poor at math).

Perhaps for the 10th Anniversary, they upped these percentages for regular Abyss, in addition to doing the special Cognac and Rye versions? This is just speculation, however, which I'm also generally poor at.

I will say I liked the Cognac version a great deal. I know some are being put off by those semi-dreaded 4-letter words, tart and sour, but I have no particular affinity for such flavor (rather, I have something of an aversion to it), and yet I still thoroughly enjoyed the beer. Even so, for anyone who only got one bottle, I'd recommend given it at least several months for the Cognac, which is quite prominent now, to fade a little.

 

Reading off the labels:
2006: 33% aged in oak and oak bourbon barrels.
2007:33% aged in oak and oak bourbon barrels.
2008: 33% aged in oak and oak bourbon barrels.
2009: 33% aged in oak and oak bourbon barrels- I have been told they used the 2008 Dissident barrels for this beer and it produced some off flavors. In a 2006-2012 vertical it stood out noticeably.
2010- 33% aged in oak and oak bourbon barrels.
2011- 6% aged in oak bourbon barrels, 11% aged in oak barrels, and 11% aged in oak wine barrels.
2012- 6% aged in oak bourbon barrels, 11% aged in oak barrels, and 11% aged in oak wine barrels.
2013- 6% aged in oak bourbon barrels, 11% aged in oak barrels, and 11% aged in oak wine barrels.
2014- 6% aged in oak bourbon barrels, 11% aged in oak barrels, and 11% aged in oak wine barrels.
2015- 21% aged in oak bourbon barrels, 8% aged in oak barrels, and 21% aged in oak wine barrels.

 

Fantastic work! An accountant among us, dare I say?

 

An accountant? Not this guy! I have all the labels from 06-12 saved and 10-15 in the cellar.

 

Well, a dedicated collector, and an enthusiast, then?

 

I mentioned this in the Portland thread, but in case you don't check it I picked up the Cognac from Zupan's for $25. And Dogfish Head's 120-minute also happened to be on the shelf.

 

Rye variants should start popping up this week if we're lucky, that is a big IF though.