“I will roar you as gently as any sucking dove,” says Bottom, the weaver, in one of the many elegant paradoxes and turns of phrase in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The juxtaposition of gentility and intensity, care and ferocity came to mind as we blended this new Bourbon barrel-aged stout, and so, our midsummer stout release was christened accordingly.
It has been over a year since we released a blended stout that didn’t have some “extra” quirk– rye, peat, maple, nocino, American hops–so it is with great pleasure that we get back to the basics and release a straight-up, nothing-fussy Imperial Stout aged in Bourbon barrels. The majority of the blend is a double oatmeal stout; it screams of chocolate and is extra velvety across the palate. We dosed in carefully selected casks of long-aged American stout and an English stout with loads of caramel malt that contributes a distinct bruleed sugar character to any finished blend. More aged than our average blend, I Will Roar you comes with plenty of complex oxidation that hints of raisin and sawdust.
Like Bottom’s imagined portrayal of the lion, this beer cloaks intensity in a cooing and silky robe. We hope you enjoy the meeting of rough and gentle in this delicious new blend.