So for anyone not from the area, Riley's is a landmark liquor store in Madison, WI and Mobcraft is a brewery partnered with House of Brews that sends out several beer ideas to their followers each month and allows the followers to vote on which beer they brew that month. Riley's and Mobcraft recently collaborated on a barrel-aging project. The beer (a Russian Imperial) was aged in Elijah Craig Small Batch 12 year barrels and Evan Williams Single Barrel 2003 barrels. It is called Petrichor. The bottle I'm drinking is numbered 322/400 and was the Elijah Craig variant. This beer is the real deal. It is 9.5% alcohol, very smooth, a bit of alcohol bite but not unpleasant, and plenty of flavor. I emailed the brewers since they are local and still small. They said they will be brewing the 2015 batch soon, so it sounds like it'll be an annual release for the time being. That excites me. Anyone else tried this brew or the other variant and have an opinion?
I actually just tried this today. I was blown away. I've had other mob craft beers and they were just okay, so I didn't have really high expectations. But wow! Had Elijah Craig #181. Very impressed and hopeful to snag some more.
I was only aware of a gold and silver. The gold has been released to all Mobcraft's markets, which is why you have it in Milwaukee. The silver is exclusive to Riley's. I'm going to pick up one of each today as the quality of this stuff still seems to be a secret. Riley's said they have 10ish cases yet remaining.
I will know more when I pick my bottles up from Riley's this afternoon. The one I drank last night had gold wax, was numbered 322/400, and had the third option checked. I'm not sure if each of the Riley's variants has a different color wax or if both Riley's variants have silver wax while the Mobcraft one has gold.
Ah yeah you're right. It is silver wax. I saw it on Twitter and for whatever reason thought it had black wax. Just checked and it's indeed silver. Good to know that it's a Riley's exclusive. Tempted to make the drive to get some.
Just picked mine up. So both Mobcraft and Riley's supplied an Elijah Craig barrel. The Elijah Craig variant gets gold wax. If you buy it anywhere but Riley's, the checkbox on the right under "Mobcraft barrels" will be checked. If you buy it at Riley's, the Elijah Craig box under "Riley's barrels" will be checked. Riley's supplied the Evan Williams barrel and so received 100% of the beer from that barrel. That variant has silver wax and obviously has the only box not yet mentioned checked. There are 400 bottles from the Mobcraft barrel and 325 bottles from each Riley's barrel.
I picked up the Gold Wax (Elijah Craig) bottle today since the reviews have been pretty good. I guess the Silver Wax (Evan Williams) version was more acidic and gave it some off flavors and tartness.
