Picked up my bottles today. Tried Vanilla Villain on tap and it was excellent. I'm excited about the bottle.
I think that was one with bottling delays. It looked sold out because it wasn't ready. It's included in the Reserve Select package now which means they have a bunch to liquidate.
My bottle of Toasted Delight is great. Super smooth and the flavors mesh really well together. Might grab another bottle.
I opened a Musket tonight. Not going to lie, I'm a bit disappointed. I'd say it's more like an American Barley Wine. The hop bitterness is very present and it has a very dry finish. I much prefer Mash.
The untappd description states this: Blended barrel-aged imperial stout with pecans, cinnamon, and Tahitian vanilla beans. Laissez les bons temps rouler with this festive imperial stout! We blended together two of our favorite gin barrel and rye barrel-aged imperial stouts for an unbelievably rich, complex base flavor. We then gave it the full Mardi Gras Praline King Cake treatment with pecans, cinnamon, and Tahitian vanilla beans.
Agree on the bitterness... Though I attributed that to it being more dry. Which I was good with given all the other sweet beers. I bet they aimed for dry since they're planning to do a lot of adjunct treatments with it that will often add more sweetness? To me American Barleywine isn't just bitter, it's also got more hop flavor profile. Like Sierra Bigfoot, or Stone Old Guardian back in the day. Man I loved that one.
I assume Date Shake and Sap Cap are based on this base beer. If so it'll be interesting to see how these balance out the sweet adjuncts with the base Barley Wine. I suspect (and hope) you are correct.
I also assume that for Date Shake. It says Musket explicitly on Sap Cap. And we're getting a vanilla Barleywine later this year too. I forget if there are any others. I still wish I'd had a chance to buy more plain Musket though.
Opened a 2020 White Chocolate last night. It's definitely past it's prime. Adjuncts are all but gone and some oxidation is definitely showing up. I'm a mildly disappointed as White Chocolate was one of the beers that turned me into a Bruery fan nearly a decade ago. I can't really hold it against them as it's still a 5+ year old bottle.
Looks like I need to polish off the few I have pretty quickly. They’ve been in refrigerators at 46* this whole time, so hopefully that slowed some of the issues you note. That beer was one of the primary reasons I became a Bruery convert too.
It was still enjoyable, it just really felt like it wasn't what it once was. This bottle was purchased from the Bruery a few weeks ago so I assume it was stored properly.
I don't recall what year they reformulated... But it might have been 2020? If so then that's likely the issue and not the age. Just like with Mash the reformulation killed it. Thinner and way less bold. So disappointing. Worth noting that the BT reformulation in 2018 was a huge improvement. And the Ani solera rebalancing around 2020 I think has been positive. So I'm not just an "all change bad" guy.
I opened a 2021 Black Tuesday tonight. It's much less complex than it was fresh and it's definitely not as good as it was in 21. I think I'm overly sensitive to oxidation as this bottle has definite signs of oxidation. I've decided that aging beer more than a year or two is just not a good idea for me.
