Conflux #1 - Collage

I tried this beer alongside Dissident thanks to a great BA (DSlim71). I preferred dissident and dissident seemed to be the dominating factor that I liked in #1. Maybe there was too much going on, but it was still quite good.

 

Didnt care for it. Now I have more of this than I know what to do with.

Not sure how other blend components would've worked.

 

Yep. I just drain poured a bottle last night. I think my friend has another bottle, so I'll have him sit on it for a year or so and we'll try it again.

 

No.

I think this beer was spectacular, highlight of the year good. The play of peat, oak, sour, sweet caramel, esters, fruit, and vanilla was great. With mirrormirror and abyss you lose the sour, the esters, a lot of the fruity elements and it becomes like so many other beers.

This beer was not only unique, but also delicious. The blend you propose would be great, but boring.

 

It's important to keep in mind that none of the components of Collage were actually the same as the released beers of the same name. They did a dedicated brewing of each (in the case of the HOTD beers "more in a day than I usually brew in a year"), then aged them in something like 50 different types of barrels, then tasted and blended.

(And, FWIW, the single-barrel "Stoic" that we got at the release party was much, much better than normal Stoic.)

 

I enjoyed this beer immensely when I first had it at a weekly beer tasting I went to. I picked up 6 bottles at that time. I then had it at the Deschutes table at a Craft Beer Crawl I went to last month. I still liked it as much as the first time, so I ended up picking up another 6 bottles (It really is all over LA right now).

I've since cracked one of the bottles I had put back, and I still continue to enjoy it as much as I did the first time. I'll be drinking some slowly and keeping 6 back for a year or so.

Everyone likes what they like, and for me personally, this beer really did it for me.

I think the limitedness of this beer was way overhyped, considering it is still readily available on shelves here, and Deschutes had literally a truck full of it at the beer crawl. If you picked up bottles to trade later, I'd probably just go ahead and drink them now.