August 2015 Cellar Reviews

2012 Widmer Old Embalmer Barleywine



Maybe the thick beige head mutes the nose a little but that which cuts through is fig like and sweet

No oxidation or otherwise off putting tastes or smells to suggest that aging hadn't gone well, so good so far.

Taste is immediately bright with cherries before a nice little wave of dank and piney bitterness washes over the tongue carrying with it some of that sweetness in the form of candy sugar that was in the nose before the bitter aftertaste begins to linger.

My only real knock on this one is that it's water thin.

Despite being 3 years old, this still carries a lot of bitterness. Really caught me by surprise actually.

 

I have four of those right now. Looking forward to cracking a few open!

 

Drinking a Hair of the Dog Adam Batch 68. Owned it for the last 7 years, it's sublime.

 

I have a couple batch 62's left that I just cannot bring myself to drink because ill be so sad when they are gone. I wrote a full review on one bottle back in 2011. When I opened another bottle just a couple months ago, I sipped on it and browsed my older review. With an additional 4 years on it, it was still impeccable.

What an amazing beer with 10+ years of age. Its like chocolate covered smoked raisons...

 

A couple years ago I accidentally sent an Adam batch 55 out as an extra when I meant to grab a fresh cherry adam, I still think about how good that bottle must have been and hope it was appreciated.

 

Weyerbacher Blasphemy Ale, 750ml corked and caged, 05/17/12 (3.25 years!). Opened 8/23/15 into a Duck Rabbit snifter.

As a huge fan of this beer fresh - for the price and quality it is vastly underappreciated - I was thrilled to see the old label on the shelf (first time anyone has been thrilled to see an old Weyerbacher label). Who knows about cellar-process quality. After some searching found "05/17/12, 05/17/15" in dark screen print on the neck.

Overall, alcohol (11.8%) not as hot as a fresh bottle. Bourbon is subdued in both nose and flavor...oak, vanilla, and heat are all a little more muddled. Dark stone fruit is a little sweeter and juicier thanks to some slight oxidation.

Not sure if it's an improvement as I love the beer fresh - but it is by no means bad and I'd be curious to test the 5-year enjoy by date printed on the bottle.

 

2011 Guinness Foreign Extra (7.5% ABV). Really quite good, with dark berry and cocoa flavors. The original tartness of this beer is retained, but the substantial hop bitterness of the original is diminished. This creates a rather unique beer at this age, with almost no ill effects from 4 years of oxidative changes. I wouldn't have guessed it would turn out this well.

 

2009 Alaskan Smoked Porter. My first experience with this aged. Really, really good at 6 years! Like smoky chocolate dipped in port. Very mellow and smooth, with surprisingly thick mouthfeel for this age. I think this is one of the best reasily available beers to cellar.

 

2014 Bourbon Barrel Arrogant Bastard (22oz). Bottled 8/24/14, consumed 8/25/15. Taste is sweet cherries, toffee, oak, pipe tobacco, leather, agave nectar. This is one of the most under-rated beers I can think of; I'd take this (at this age) over, say, Backwoods Bastard (of any age) any day of the week. In the ballpark of DDBA (another under-rated beer).

 

2014 Deschutes Mirror Mirror (best after 2/24/15). Apparently, I've had this one other time since fresh, tho my notes from that tasting bear no resemblance to this time. Served in a Teku at cellar temp. Pours a fairly red-tinged light brown, with a small orange-pith colored head. Smell is leather, alcohol, grapes. Taste is Juicy-Juice Grape Juice (okay, maybe Manischewitz), caramel, astringent oak, very mild tobacco. Feel starts out thin but ends up medium, fairly dry and bitter. Overall, I've always wanted to like this beer, and it's starting to become something closer to what I think Deschutes wanted; maybe in another 9 months, it will be where it's supposed to be. As it is, I've been enjoying various brandy-barreled beers lately; the shadow cast by those beers on the cave wall is this beer. 4.17/5.

 

One of my favorites fresh and not available in my state. If I bought a case it'd be gone in the first year.