Plunderphonics is the most intense and aggressive blended stout we have produced to date. It is an adjunct-free blend of imperial stouts that retains punchy, upfront intensity despite having been smoothed with time in barrels.

We appropriately embraced the anxiety of influence in blending a beer called Plunderphonics, taking explicit inspiration from a beer that opened our eyes to what beer could be: Bell’s Expedition Stout. We paid tribute to that roasty, over-the-top behemoth by using a char-forward, audacious imperial American stout as the centerpiece for our blend. Twelve months in oak softened the most intense edges of that cohort of casks, while leaving behind time-derived notes of plum, salted licorice, and little bit of soy.

That’s right, this beer takes a deliberate tour in the realm of umami that few beers do intentionally or well. But it’s that kiss of savory je ne sais quoi that adds irresistible levels of extra can’t-quite-put-my-finger-on-it flavors. We’re not dumb dumbs though: too much savory isn’t what anyone wants in their barrel-aged stout, so we went back to the blending table to find some casks to temper the “Expedition” blend. Lo and behold– a mix of barrel- and stainless-aged Chocolate Stout gave the appropriate mix of vibrant dry cocoa sweetness, fresh roast, and subtle coconut, and mild lemon that really ties the room together on this one.

In 2019, we began a project to revamp how we produce our barrel-aged strong beers. Instead of brewing discrete batches for single release at a future date, we decided to treat our strong ales more like the base beers in our mixed fermentation cellar. We designed fifteen different stout recipes for barrel-aging and blending. These beers are a labor of love, demanding long brew days, extended tank times, and careful handling during aging. Through 2021, we have unveiled the first of these small volume blends.

Our final barrel-aged stout for 2021 is Skweee. Like its music-genre namesake, Skweee straddles a peculiar line between minimalism and maximalism. Like four of the other five stouts we have released this year, it is free of adjuncts and allows us to explore and highlight the ways in which particular barrels and unadulterated base dark ales interact when blended together.

We anchored Skwee on a cohort of rye stout casks. These beers were redolent of cherry, bran, raisin, plum, and treacle, and as any good rye stout should be, they were oily: mouthcoating in a way that overtakes the entire palate. Honoring and building upon the rye stout became our focus as we put together our final mix of casks. We chose to blend around this central core adding barrels that offered maple and chocolate along with grainy whiskey aromatics. This comes through in every sip of the beer that is Skweee. Unlikely flavor hooks abound: a hint of fruity-boozy rye on the nose, persistent bitterness and char in the back palate, growing warming in the chest. It is decadent in the same way as a rich dish that you just can’t stop eating; enjoy and good luck!

Cute Metal is our blended barrel-aged stout with Madagascar vanilla and Ecuadorian chocolate. We began this blend with a milk stout that is the biggest beer, body-wise in our arsenal. The milk stout is thick, mouthcoating, oily, viscous. The other stouts are big too, so the fact that we use them to ‘cut’ the big beer down a bit tells you just how intense the milk stout is. The goal was to use this sumptuous majority beer to create a perfect platform for world class, real vanilla and chocolate. No extracts, essences, ‘natural flavorings,’ or the like. This is not fast food, and it’s not cheap pastry. Think sophisticated, indulgent dessert with Grade A ingredients. The chocolate stout brings bright fruitiness, berry, coffee cherry, cascara, and burnt umber-hued cocoa powder. It evokes drinking chocolate, in all its rich, bitter, and acidic complexity. And vanilla. If you taste vanilla, it’s too much vanilla, so don’t expect something that will beat you in the face. Vanilla used expertly is barely present yet essential. It enhances and focuses the other ingredients, softens their edges and brings harmony. We hope you enjoy this foray into the world of pastry– it’s our version of Triple Fudge Brownie for fancy girls and boys.

Stout, Bourbon, oak, and age.  Space Music, our first blend, is an unadulterated glimpse into our new wood cellar. No adjuncts, nothing to mask the beautiful interplay between these high gravity base stouts, the barrels, and the contours of time. Making this sort of beer is almost like passing the litmus test: if you want to make a range of great barrel-aged stouts, you have to be able to pull off the classic one. It’s like knowing how to cook a perfect French omelet, or roast a perfect chicken. You have to be able to master technique before you can bend the rules.  We sought to check all of the classic boxes of wood-aging here: char, light smoke, oak-flavors of coconut and vanilla, tannin, pleasant oxidation, and, of course, Bourbon. The three base beers work in concert: the aged Russian Imperial Stout is lighter in body which allows the most wood-derived flavors and malt artifacts to come through. Lots of roast, ash, rickhouse, and char. The younger beers are bigger bodied and show less wood-derived character, so they contribute sweetness, bright chocolate, intense syrupy notes, rum raisin, and punchier alcohol notes. They enliven the older beer while also embiggening it.

The history of beer is littered with incomplete records about lost regional styles and obscure brewing traditions; the written archive abridged by lacunae that force brewers to make imaginative recreations. When modern craft brewers look to the silent archive of European brewing for inspiration, we must accept that we are engaging in mythmaking. We sought to mine that vein of lost beers, when blending Dark Cabaret.

Our newest blended barrel-aged stout is a characterful expression of beer, barrels, and aging, no adjuncts needed. The dominant base beer here is our interpretation of an historic German-style kulmbacher ale. What do we know about the style? That it was strong, dark, and hoppy. What do we imagine about it? That it was a strong cousin to Baltic porters, slightly smokey as would have been true for much historic beer, and suitable for long aging. We selected six casks of mature modern kulmbacher, aged in Bourbon barrels, and blended them with casks of two other stouts in our wood cellar to amplify notes of raisin, char, sea salt, and milk chocolate. The inspiration is historical, the result is undoubtedly modern, distinct, and delicious.

Imperial Oatmeal Stout Aged in Bourbon and Apple Brandy Barrels

Blend Components:

45% Double Oatmeal Stout Aged in Bourbon Barrels for 12 months

33% Triple Oatmeal Stout Aged in Bourbon Barrels for 5 months

11% Barleywine Aged in Apple Brandy Barrels for 26 months

11% Wee Heavy Aged in Bourbon Barrels for 26 months