The Bruery (2021)

Creme Bruelay

It's fantastic. Nails the aroma and flavor. Love the barleywine base vs yet another stout. Decadent but not heavy, sweet but not overdone or cloying. Fantastic balance and dangerously easy drinking.

There's only one reason I'm not immediately buying more, and that's the price. It looks like they've raised prices $1 more or less across the board, plus it seems like these collabs now warrant a couple extra bucks just for being collabs. I mean, I probably will grab at least one more, but I'm going to furrow my brow at the monitor first. There are a LOT of new beers coming this year, and I'm sure there will be others I enjoy just as much that are a little cheaper.

To be clear though, if the description sounds good to you, you should 100% buy a bottle. You won't be disappointed. It's excellent.

 

Agree. Wife enjoyed it but, I skipped it and went straight to “triple dog dare” and opened a 2015 Black Tuesday.

 

I posted in last years thread, but I did not like it. It was thin, no bourbon character, a slight chalky PB flavor and some artificial berry flavor. For the price, it's kind of a joke, and it's a bummer that the OG Mash base is probably gone. I won't buy any other versions of mash if it's the same 10% base beer.

 

Cracked open some of the new allocations yesterday -

Elvis Mash - Major banana bomb, the peanut butter flavor was nice and subtle in the background but gets out of the way for this banana train comin through, choo choo! This didn't taste like the Mash base I remember from years past though. For as cloudy and cream this beer looks, it was surprisingly thin on the palate and didn't have the complexity of mash I remember, was disappointed and hoping for a take back to the good ol mash days. Once I got a few sips in I was sort of over it but maybe that's just me, I'm sure the banana puree will probably mellow out after a while and I'm looking forward to that, bought 3, drank 1, not buying more.

Creme Bruelay - This heavenly nectar immediately enters my top 3 Bruery beers of all time. I cannot describe this other than a liquified creme brulee dessert with a whopper of an ABV (15.9%), even down to the carmalized sugar taste, vanilla bomb wonderment, I was kept in shock and awe after every sip. I bought 3, drank 3 (with friends of course) and already scooped up my last single allocation and will max it immediately if we get a refresh.

 

Thank you for all of the reviews! Any word on Bayou?

 

I'm in the same boat if this is the Mash we're getting going forward, the old recipe Mash is a much better beer.

 

Freckles is good... I don't love it but I feel like it's well made and other people probably will.

The heat from the pepper is moderately strong but then fades fast, which is actually pretty cool. It doesn't just sit there burning indefinitely.

However, the spiciness does kind of take over and distract from any other flavors in there.

It's pretty dry relative to most Bruery stouts which is also a nice change of pace. Kind of a medium heft body, which probably helps temper the spiciness.

I'm not going to buy any more... Though under normal circumstances when I would be seeing more other humans I might buy one or two because I think it would be fun to share.

 

Still Black Tuesday

Similar to my response on Freckles: it's objectively very good, I'm just not that into it.

It does not taste like wine, but the drinking experience feels similar to wine. Partly of course because it's still, but also because I think the oak and because the malts deliver some really nice chocolate and dark fruit flavors that are reminiscent of wine.

I enjoy the stillness in the wine hybrids, but in this case I'm not that into it. It's not overly sweet nor cloying, and yet at least a little fizz to help refresh the palate would be nice. I also miss the bourbon (or rum, or port, etc of other barrels).

It's rich and super mellow; the quality is there. Many of you will totally go bonkers I'm sure. But given my current cellar size and all the really cool stuff on the docket for this year, it's easy for me personally to pass on more.

 

Bayou was ok I think I expected way more
Creme Bruelay and Elvis both really solid
Still Black Tuesday was amazing

 

Anyone try Pago Pago? Samoa's are my fav girl scout cookie, but I haven't found a beer that captures that balance of flavors yet.

 

haven’t had Pago yet but Southern Tier Samoa This is really good IMHO. No barrel though.

 

+1 on "thin" being the word that most describes my reaction to Mash PB&J. I liked the peanut and berry flavors and thought they worked well together, I just wanted a beefier, stickier base behind them.

I drank it because I was thinking about getting Elvis Mash, which looks really good in photos, but idk if I'll be getting any other Mash variants with this base. I miss the old one

btw, I'm loving all the reviews posted so far, gonna be a great 2021 if this keeps up

 

Why did they change the recipe for Mash? I must have missed that they changed it.

 

I seem to remember that it changed awhile ago.

 

I thought I remembered something about that, but I just don't seem to remember what the logic behind it was.

 

If I remember correctly they wanted Mash to become an Imperial Brown Ale instead of Barleywine.

 

I think the "imperial brown ale" re-brand was name only, not recipe. That came and went a couple years ago.

When they did Mash & Vanilla around Nov 2019 I think that was still the original recipe (and was delicious). I don't think we saw ANY Mash releases in 2020 until PBJ right at the end, so I think it is the first time they've used the revised base.

 

From what I remember on the ramblings here on the forums a few years back it was definitely to get away from the "barleywine" name which I guess people used to steer clear of this not knowing it's a beer style and confusing it with wine?? Which I believe isn't an issue anymore at least for the general public....I don't even know that it ever was an issue to begin with??

imo, the Bruery used to kill it with the original Mash and said variants, their barleywine was top notch.
#BringOriginalMashBack2021

 

I honestly haven't had an older Mash in a loooong time, has anyone had any old label Mash recently?

 

I have not, but now I'm going to open a bottle of 2017 Mash and French Toast that I have in my cellar and see how it turns out.