Gigantic Brewing (2020)

Consistently one of the very best English Barleywines around, regular and barrel-aged. I grab a bottle almost every time I see it. Are there now variants beyond bourbon barrel-aged?

 

Massive! is delicious. Are the variants still around?

 

Here are the variants according to New School beer:

2019 Small Batch Barrel Varietals are very limited and are marked by a sticker over each cap with the year and the barrel. This years single barrel varietals of MASSIVE are Scotch barrel, Mezcal, Maple Syrup, Cognac, Port, and Rye whiskey.

 

No shit. Hopefully I get the opportunity to try some of these, I’d love to see how the barrels lend themselves to a barley wine as opposed to a stout.

 

I had the Scotch variant and it was quite nice with a hint of smokiness. I'd love to try the Mezcal one but I didn't see it. I wonder if they have them at the brewery...

And to the OP's question - Massive is a great barleywine, well worth picking up.

 

I'm pretty sure I saw the regular Massive (bourbon barrel) at Whole Foods in the Pearl earlier this week.

 

If you're headed up to the Portland area, you should still be able to find the standard version or the bourbon barrel-aged version. Seems to me I've seen those around town lately.

I haven't seen the variants around town, but that's because 1) I wasn't looking for them because 2) I didn't know about them until last weekend. You should stop by the brewery when you're up here. That's the first place I'd look. I'd also check in at the better bottle shops in town (Belmont Station, BeerMongers, Imperial Bottle Shop, maybe even John's Marketplace).

 

I swung by the brewery last night and they still have the vast majority of the variants (if not all). I was there to grab something else so I didn't pay much attention to inventory but they're definitely still there.

Also, if their website is up to date, there's plenty to choose from still:

2016 Barrel Aged Massive Barley Wine 22 oz ($20)
2016 Massive Barley Wine 22oz ($10)
2017 Barrel Aged Massive Barley Wine 500ml ($15)
2018 Bourbon Barrel Aged Massive Barley Wine 500ml ($15)
2018 Scotch Barrel Aged Massive Barley Wine 500ml ($15)
2019 Scotch Barrel Aged Massive Barley Wine 500ml ($15)
2019 Port Barrel Aged Massive Barley Wine 500ml ($15)
2019 Rye Barrel Aged Massive Barley Wine 500ml ($15)
2019 Mezcal Barrel Aged Massive Barley Wine 500ml ($15)
2019 Cognac Barrel Aged Massive Barley Wine 500ml ($15)
2019 Maple Syrup Barrel Aged Massive Barley Wine 500ml ($15)

 

There's a great supply of '19 Cognac at the bottle shop next to my hotel here in the Bay Area, one of which made it back to my room on Tue night. One of the best BWs I've had in quite a while.

 

Not sure about a “set” but Johns Market always has bottles. Also, seems obvious but have you checked with the brewery?? That have a pretty extensive bottle list that goes back years.