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Tröegs has a series of experimental Scratch beers that are always interesting, sometimes confounding, and occasionally fantastic. Rare offerings have graduated into the standard lineup, like Flying Mouflan. Some have come and gone, and still others have made repeat appearances, but only in the limited Scratch series batches.

¿Impending Descent? was first made back in 2012 in honor of (or perhaps to spite) the (long since lapsed) Mayan apocalypse, and I absolutely loved that initial offering. Each subsequent year (on Black Friday), they've released another Scratch beer called Impending Descent, though each appears to have been a tweaked recipe. Last year's version, for instance, only clocked in at 9.3% ABV (while the original was 11.9%). Regardless, in accordance with my insatiable desire for local Bourbon Barrel Aged stouts, I've been pining after a BA version of this beer ever since that first taste. With the expansion of Tröegs' Splinter program, I've finally gotten my wish.

So we've got the standard Impending Descent base (which I'm assuming was the same batch as the 2015 Scratch release) with vanilla bean and cocoa added and then aged in Bourbon Barrels for a year. I didn't take notes, but I happened to have one of the regular 2015 Scratch beers on hand, so I tried that earlier in the week. It's held up well, with the major change being that the hops have gone piney and resinous, as they tend to do with age. This follows through on the barrel aged version, which is quite nice, but let's take a closer look, as this descent has been impending for quite some time:

Tröegs Bourbon Barrel Aged Impending Descent - Pours a very dark brown color, almost black, with a finger of light brown head. Smells quite nice, barrel aging apparent, plenty of bourbon, oak, and vanilla, some caramel, some roast, and some piney, resinous hops (which is definitely a result of aging - Impending Descent doesn't have that note when fresh). Taste hits some rich caramel notes, lots of roast and chocolate, with the barrel lending the typical boozy bourbon, oak, and vanilla character, and again you get those aged, piney, resinous bittering hops. Mouthfeel is full bodied, rich, well but appropriately carbonated, a good amount of booze. Overall yep, it's really good! Maybe tone down the hops a bit, but I like it a lot as is... Not going to be a BCBS killer, but would be curious to see how it develops. A-

Beer Nerd Details: 12% ABV bottled (375 ml caged and corked). Drank out of a snifter on 11/25/16.

Glad I made the trip out to Hershey to grab this stuff, though I'm pretty sure it will hit distribution. Worth seeking out, and the price is certainly right (especially compared to that other Black Friday release everyone goes bonkers over, even if I don't think this one quite defeats BCBS). Certainly looking forward to future iterations on this, and the continuing expansion of the Splinter series. Nothing on the immediate horizon, but I'm sure it won't be long before we're reviewing more Tröegs...

After last year's Dark Wednesday introduction of Java Cask (a top tier bourbon barrel aged imperial coffee stout, at least when it's fresh - the coffee drops off a cliff after a few months or so, which is actually a welcome development for coffee ambivalents like myself, but I digress), they decided to let it ride with another batch this year... plus a variant! Alas, not the "non-coffee" variant I dream about, but rather a Rye barrel aged version.

At first glance, this seems like a pretty minor tweak. Rye whiskey can be very different than bourbon, but it's not that much of a leap, especially considering that it will have to stand up against strong adjuncts like coffee. It turns out that Victory used a different strand of One Village coffee for this one, and the use of Bulleit Rye casks does genuinely impart a distinct character. The resulting beer is almost 2% lower in ABV, but still fabulous. Just to signal my neckbeardedness, it's a brewpub exclusive, and limit of 4 bottles per person. Bill Covaleski was even signing bottles! Let's do this thing:

Victory Java Cask Rye - Pours a dense, very dark brown color, almost black, with almost no head. Smells of, yes, roasted coffee, but also chocolate, oak, and vanilla. Taste starts off sweet, caramel and dark malt, coffee comes out in the middle followed by a nice, spicy rye character that is actually distinct from regular Java Cask. Mouthfeel is full bodied, rich, and chewy (if perhaps a little less so than regular Java Cask), moderate carbonation, plenty of warming booze too. Overall, it's another winner... perhaps not quite at original Java Cask level, but close enough and a worthy variant. A-

Beer Nerd Details: 12.5% ABV bottled (750 ml caged and corked). Drank out of a snifter on 11/23/16. Enjoy By: 17 Nov 2017.

Supposedly, Java Cask original recipe is making the distribution rounds, so if coffee stouts are your thing, make the effort. I hold out hope that Victory will do a non-coffified version someday. As it was, they had a fabulous firkin of Java Cask with vanilla and cacao that was, well, fabulous. I believe I said that already. Jeeze guys. Anywho, Victory has also been teasing something called Victory Red, a Flanders Red style beer that's been in the works for three years. Color me interested. Stay tuned.

When I was a kid, I collected coins. And not just those goofy books with slots for each year's penny, I went all out, grading them (XF-45 bro), putting them in fancy individual casings, and so on. Yes, I was a nerd, I believe we've already established that, quit screaming "NERD!" at the top of your lungs. Anyway, Buffalo nickels (aka Indian Head nickels) were interesting because the ill-advised design lead to normal wear and tear basically erasing the year from the coin (since it was on a raised area of the engraving, it was the first to fade). Still, it was a nice design, as you might expect when Teddy Roosevelt's administration started on a mission to "beautify" the nation's coinage. All our coin designs these days are boring old presidents. Those older coins were great, with a million variations on lady liberty, Mercury wings, buffalo, Native Americans, shields, and so on. These days we're stuck with a cavalcade of presidents. Nice, I guess, but it could use some updating, no?

Anywho! This is a pair of barrel aged beers from New Jersey's Double Nickel brewing company, both Buffalo Nickel inspired. Or at least named after them. I mean, nickel is a toxic transition metal and thus not a great ingredient in beer. But I digress. Again. Anyway, a friend had brought both of these to a bottle share a while back, and I was pretty impressed, but then, it's tricky to really evaluate beer at a share. Too many flavors, tiny pours, and so on. So during a recent sojourn into the Garden State, I saw these and jumped on them. I mean, I quickly purchased them. I didn't literally jump on them. That would have hurt. As expected, slightly different perception when drinking by themselves, though I still really enjoyed them. One of the most interesting things about them is that they're relatively low alcohol for bourbon barrel aged beers. 8-8.5% is reasonably high, but compared to the normal 13+% we see, these are pretty svelte. Let's see how they hold up:

Double Nickel Marbled Buffalo - Pours a clear dark brown color, amber highlights, with a finger of light tan head. Smells great, toffee, rye spice, hints of bourbon, oak, and vanilla. Taste hits those spicy rye notes hard, a little rich caramel and toffee, bourbon, oak, and vanilla. Really impressed by the rye character here. Mouthfeel is well carbonated, medium bodied, moderate richness, goes down pretty easy. Overall, this is a fascinating beer, nice barrel character, but the lower ABV makes it more approachable than your typical take. The rye comes through really well. Unique and complex. Borderline high B+ or low A-

Beer Nerd Details: 8% ABV bottled (22 ounce bomber). Drank out of a snifter on 10/28/16. Bottle No. 142 of 1800.

Double Nickel Buffalo Nickel - Pours a very dark brown, almost black color, with half a finger of light brown head. Smells of caramel and vanilla, with hints of bourbon and oak, and maybe some faint roast. Taste is rich caramel and vanilla, with some roast and maybe even a little hop character floating around in the middle, finishing on a bourbon and oak note. Mouthfeel is slightly less carbonated, rich, full bodied, but still pretty approachable. Overall, nowhere near as unique, but a solid little BBA imperial stout, all the more impressive because of the lowish ABV. Quite nice. B+

Beer Nerd Details: 8.5% ABV bottled (22 ounce bomber). Drank out of a snifter on 10/28/16. Bottle No. 1516 of 1800.

These beers made a pretty great first impression on me, and being located in Pennsauken, New Jersey, they might be closer than a lot of great PA breweries I visit on the regular, so you'll probably see more from them here at some point...

Hard to believe, but it's been twenty years since Stone declared that we weren't worthy to drink their beer. This turned out to be a successful reverse psychology gambit, as they've enjoyed quite a bit of popularity over the years. For their 20th Anniversary, they embarked upon a series of Anniversary Encore beers. Back in January, they released a rebrew of their 12th Anniversary Bitter Chocolate Oatmeal Stout, but they also reserved some for the Bourbon Barrel treatment, released in August and dubbed Oakmeal, which is what I have here.

For a brewery as big as Stone, it's always been surprising how small their barrel program was, but they started beefing it up a couple years ago. That initial batch of Fyodor's Classic was superb, but subsequent batches lacked that one's pop. I know, I don't like it when people proclaim that "Last year's batch was better" either, but in this case, there's actual cause for speculation. The great batch was aged 12 months, the not-as-great batch was only aged 7 months. Length of aging isn't the only variable, but it seems like an important one and the difference was palpable. Now, Oakmeal's base is a little less hearty than the Fyodor's base and it also incorporates healthy doses of bitter chocolate and oats (cerealously, oats!), but it also only got the 7 month aging period. How will that work out this time? Only one way to find out, which is to ask Wilford Brimley. Ok, two ways, we can drink it too:

Stone Bitter Chocolate Oakmeal Bourbon Barrel Stout - Pours black as a politician's soul with a finger of gorgeous brown head that sticks around for a bit. Smells nice, lots of roast malt, chocolate, coffee and little caramel, oak, and vanilla from those barrels too. Taste starts off sweet, rich caramel, vanilla, and then we move on to more prominent roasted malt, dark chocolate, finishing on a small amount of a boozy bourbon note. The barrel character is nice, but not exceptional, and again, I noticed that it's at 7 months, where the best Stone BA stuff I've had was at 12 months... Not sure if that is the culprit, but it seems likely. Mouthfeel is rich and full bodied, moderate carbonation, a little warming booze. Overall, a rock solid bourbon barrel stout, not going to open new vistas of the mind, but worthwhile in its own right. B+

Beer Nerd Details: 11.4% ABV bottled (500 ml caged and corked). Drank out of a snifter on 10/8/16. Brewed: December 5, 2015. Bottled: July, 2016.

Stone seems to have focused this year's barrel aging efforts on creating variants of their Xocoveza beer, which I'd gladly try... but I'm still jonesing for well-aged Fyodor's again. Fingers crossed.

The other day, someone posted a thread on Facebook asking folks to post their top two breweries with the highest count of unique beers tasted (Untappd helps keep track of this sort of thing). For me, number two was Victory with 60 different brews.

Not too shabby, but regular readers (all 3 of you) who remember my epic recaps of hundreds of Tired Hands beers might guess that brewery would place number one. And they'd be correct! How correct? Oh, you know, something to the tune of 356 different beers. That's all. Ok, fine, before you start preparations for my intervention, there are a few mitigating factors. One is that, according to Untappd, there are 975 different Tired Hands beers (Beer Advocate only lists 769 beers though). So I haven't even had half of them! Second, the grand majority of these have been 4 or 8 ounce pours, with the occasional bottle and very rare pint (i.e. there were times where I've visited and had the equivalent of two pints, but that's 8 beers in 4 ounce increments). Finally, this is over the course of three years and while I used to pop over to Tired Hands every week, I've slowed my roll considerably of late.

Anywho, I've mostly given up on writing up notes when I visit, but I do tend to take note of their bottled offerings, so I'll probably continue posting these roundups from time to time, even if they're nowhere near as comprehensive as they once were. I've also managed to snag some cans from time to time, but they're generally released on Wednesdays at 4 pm or 5 pm and I have this thing called a job that prevents me from waiting in line for a few hours. I know, priorities, but you gotta do what you gotta do. Some of these are more detailed tasting notes, and others are more general observations, so take them with the appropriate mountain of salt.

Tired Hands Only Void (Single-Origin Awake Minds Ethiopian Coffee) - Cold conditioned on heavy amounts of Awake Minds Ethiopian coffee from ReAnimator Coffee - I feel like people slept on this release, as I just kinda walked up an hour after the release had started and snagged a couple four packs. You all know I'm not a big coffee person and while this doesn't exactly change my mind, it was a superb example of the style. Tons of roast and coffee, rich, intense but incredibly well balanced. Not sure how these cans are drinking now (released in April), but worth looking out for the next release. Since I didn't take formal notes and it's been several months, I'll refrain from rating, but I figured it was worth mentioning.

Tired Hands Living With Ourselves As We Are - French oak fermented wheat Saison conditioned on heaps of Meyer lemon purée - Pours a very pale straw yellow color with a finger of white head. Smells of tart fruit, those lemons coming through here, but a nice dollop of funk and oak pairs well. Taste has a nice sweet backbone, plenty of tart fruit, again with the lemons, but maybe some other fruity notes making themselves known (vinous fruit?) and plenty of oak, finishing on those sour lemons. Mouthfeel is well carbonated, medium bodied, moderately sour, quite well balanced. Overall, this is very nice, one of the better bottles of the year... A-

Beer Nerd Details: ??% ABV bottle (750 ml). Drank out of a flute glass on 7/16/16.

Tired Hands Rustic Pentagram - Sour Mango Saison. Brewed with Wheat. Hopped with Amarillo. Fermented in one of our large French oak foudres. Conditioned atop freshly made mango purée. - Had this at the Fermentaria anniversary and loved it, but it's even better out of the bottle. Pours a very pale, almost radiant yellow color, only slightly hazy, with a finger of white head that leaves some lacing. Smells amazing, a beautiful funk character mixed with a well balanced mango aroma and some oak playing go-between. Taste is sweet up front, with those mangos coming through strong, almost immediately followed by a big sour bite, then comes something a little more earthy, funky, almost cheesy and gueuze-like, and a well balanced oaky streak ties the whole thing together, finishing with another sour bite. Mouthfeel is medium bodied, well carbonated, moderate to high acidity, but very well balanced. Overall, this is spectacular, best TH bottle in a while. A

Beer Nerd Details: 6.9% ABV bottle (750 ml). Drank out of a wine glass on 7/29/16.

(Click to Embiggen)

Pineal - Have had this a few times on tap, one of Tired Hands' first recurring IPAs (and by recurring, it's like, once a year for the first two years? Though more often since they've started canning), it's always struck me as a pretty standard Tired Hands IPA. Fantastic, especially when compared to most other breweries, but not quite top tier TH single IPA. In the can? It's cloudier and juicier, I rather like it better. A-

Beer Nerd Details: 6% ABV canned (16 ounce pounder). Drank out of the can, like a man, on 7/31/16.

(Click to Embiggen)

Tired Hands Milkshake IPA - I went over the origins of this before in discussing the Northeast IPA, basically an IPA brewed with lactose, wheat flour, and strawberries - Pours a turbid, chicken broth looking pale yellow color with a finger of white head (I poured some out to see, but drank most out of the can). Smells great, huge wafts of juicy citrus, pineapple, orange, vanilla. Taste hits those big juicy citrus notes hard, lactose sweetness, mild bitterness in the finish. Mouthfeel is full bodied, thick, and chewy, well carbonated, did I mention thick? Overall, surprisingly enough, this is absolutely delicious. A

Beer Nerd Details: 7% ABV canned (16 ounce pounder). Drank out of the can, like a man, on 7/30/16.

Tired Hands Believer's Club Bottle 1 - Fermented and conditioned with our magickal Saison yeast in French oak barrels. It was conditioned atop a copious amount of mango at a rate of one and a half pounds per gallon of beer and then dry hopped with Mosaic. - Pours a slightly hazy but still radiant straw yellow color with a finger of white head. Smells great, lots of musty funk, stone fruit, mangos, oak. Taste is sweet and tart up front, some of that mango showing itself, followed by some earthy notes and oak, finishing on that sour mango swerve. Mouthfeel is medium to light bodied, a tad lower on carbonation, moderate acidity, all very well balanced. Overall, this is fabulous, very, very similar to Rustic Pentagram and I could see it growing more complex over time too. We're splitting hairs here, so let's just go A- for now, though I'm guessing it will continue to evolve over time.

Beer Nerd Details: ??% ABV bottle (750 ml). Drank out of a flute glass on 9/2/16.

Tired Hands ROOMARAK - Saison brewed with local Deer Creek Malthouse barley and wheat, fermented and aged in a Vin Santo foudre with a ton of Merlot grapes from local Karamoor Winery - Pours a striking reddish orange color, robey tones, very little head that doesn't stick around at all. Smells very nice, musty funk, vinous fruit, oak. Taste hits that vinous fruit character hard, apparently that Merlot making itself known, even getting some wine tannin here, a little oak, finishing with a sour bite. Mouthfeel is well carbonated, medium bodied, only mildly acidic. Overall, an interesting wine/beer hybrid and a tasty beer. B+ or A-

Beer Nerd Details: ??% ABV bottle (750 ml). Drank out of a wine glass on 9/3/16.

Phew, I think that's enough for now. Next up on the Tired Hands bottle front: Parageuisia 6 and 7 are being released this Sunday. If you are in the area, it's worth trying to snag a bottle, they're wonderful.

It's been a while since I've checked in with the semi-local booze hounds up at Weyerbacher. They made a big splash with last year's Sunday Morning Stout, which might be their all-around best beer that is regularly available (I'm still partial to Whiskey Barrel Aged myself; alas, that was a one-off), but then my now legendary indifference to coffee dulled my personal response. As usual, my instinct upon drinking a well made coffee stout is to wonder what it would be like without the coffee.

On paper, Weyerbacher's 21st Anniversary ale seems to fit that bill perfectly. An 11.9% ABV imperial stout aged in bourbon barrels with cocoa nibs, cocoa powder, and vanilla beans. It sounds grand, but I've often found Weyerbacher's barrel aged entries boozy and unbalanced (or completely lacking in barrel character, which makes for an odd dynamic for sure). One reason Sunday Morning Stout has caught on is that it actually coheres into a well balanced little treat. Will this one fare as well? Well, sorta, but I'll tell you one thing: It really made for a nice palate cleanser after drinking gallons of VT IPAs over the past few weeks. Let's get to it:

Weyerbacher 21st Anniversary Ale - Pours a very dark brown, almost black color with a finger of tan head. Smells of vanilla, a bit of roast, dark chocolate, and hefty amounts of bourbon and oak. Taste starts off with that hint of roast and dark chocolate, followed by a sweet wallop of vanilla, then lots of boozy bourbon. Mouthfeel is full bodied and well carbonated, pretty boozy, not particularly balanced, though it does get better as it warms - this is a beer to let sit out a bit, methinks. Overall, this is a good, tasty little beer, it lacks the integration and balance of the best in style, but if you're a fan of vanilla and bourbon, you'll like this sucker. (For the record, I like vanilla and bourbon quite a bit.) B+

Beer Nerd Details: 11.9% ABV bottled (12 ounce). Drank out of a snifter on 8/6/16. Packaged On: 06/22/16

Definitely a contender for best Weyerbacher Anniversary beer I've had, but then, they tend to be a little hit or miss. I haven't done a good job keeping up with their Brewer's Select series of one-off experimental beers and I see they've now renamed it Jester's Choice. I shall have to keep an eye out for those beers. If one catches my eye, you'll probably be hearing about it on here!

We've already established that Funky Buddha has a thing for kooky ingredients that they are mystically able to incorporate into good beers. Now it's time to take a look at a more unassuming take on a classical style. Sure, it's got oats and lactose, but those aren't particularly unusual in a big imperial stout, so this is about as close as it gets.

At first glance, I could not find any information on this fellow Nikolai Vorlauf, so I concocted a story based on the bear pictured on the label. A performer at the infamous Moscow State Circus, Nikolai got himself into trouble when he started walking on his hind legs and... exposing himself to passers by (hence the censored strip on the label). Thus began Nikolai's decades-long quest for revenge upon the cruel taskmasters at the circus. Alas, this speculation was foiled by the truth (imagine that!) It turns out this beer is named after two different things. One is Nikolai Volkoff, a WWF wrestler famed for his bearhug (he teamed up with The Iron Sheik to win the tag-team championship at the first Wrestlemania). The other is a brewing term, vorlauf, which is the process of clarifying the wort being drawn out of the mash tun. Not as fun as my version, but hey, it works:

Funky Buddha Nikolai Vorlauf Imperial Stout - Pours a very dark brown color, almost black, with a finger and a half of tan head. Smells sweet, caramel and vanilla, hints of roast. Taste starts off sweet, that caramel and vanilla are here, typical milk stout feel too, a light smokey roast emerges in the middle, finishing on another sweet note. Mouthfeel is medium to full bodied up front, but thinning out in the finish, low carbonation, maybe a hint of booze. Overall, this is rock solid, but nothing exceptional. B+

Beer Nerd Details: 9.5% ABV bottled (22 ounce bomber). Drank out of a snifter on 7/15/16. Bottled on 11/18/15.

Many thanks to Kaedrin beverage compatriot Steve for slinging this my way. More southern Florida goodies will be had in the near future, for sure, so stay tuned.

One of the most famous white whales in the beer nerd world is Rare Bourbon County Brand Stout. Released in 2010, this sucker took the base Bourbon County beer and aged it in 23 year old Pappy Van Winkle barrels for two years. At the time, neither bourbon nor beer were as crazy as they are now, so these expensive bottles were actually on shelves for a bit before their reputation caught up with them. It is arguably considered the best stout ever made. Despite being called "Rare", there were quite a few of these bottles (the name is more about the aging process than the bottle count), so they became one of the most valuable commodities on trading boards. I have, alas, never gotten a taste of that original bottling of Rare, but Goose Island has gigantic balls and went ahead and slapped that label on another beer last year.

Now, living up to that reputation has to be excruciating, but Goose came up with an interesting successor at the least. Heaven Hill found a group of bourbon barrels in their warehouse that had been aging for 35 years*. For the uninitiated, bourbon is never aged that long. I won't get into details, but apparently it's possible for bourbon to get over-oaked and nearly undrinkable because of that. It didn't make sense to me either, but then I drank some over-oaked 20 year old bourbon this one time and now I get it. I'd also guess that 35 years of the Angel's Share would really knock down what's left in that barrel (for reference, the 16 year old Stagg lost 84% of its volume to evaporation, so imagine what happens over 35 years). As a result, the bourbon was never released (at least, not to the public), but Goose Island thought it might make for a nice heir to Rare. So they got their hands on these 35 year old barrels and filled them with Bourbon County base beer, aging them for two years (regular Bourbon county is aged for around 8-12 months). Then they went all out on the packaging (you guys, even the oak box this thing comes in smells fantastic) and sold these things for $60 a pop during last year's November release. Once again, there were a fair amount of these guys out there, but spread out across Goose's now very large distribution footprint. Also, beer dorks are a few orders of magnitude more obsessive these days, so the one place I knew was getting some in the Philly area had people lining up early on Thanksgiving night for the Black Friday release.

It was something I didn't expect to get ahold of easily, and indeed, it's trading pretty well these days and the secondary market is pretty bullish too. Enter local chain of beer establishments, The Pour House. For their third anniversary last Thursday, they broke out a case of Rare and would sell them for $85. It was unannounced too, so the crowds were bearable. This is indeed quite pricey, but we got a free glass out of the deal, it's a fair and typical bar-level increase on the $60 sticker price, far below the secondary market value, and when you split it across 5 people, it's pretty reasonable. And oh my, was it worth it.

(Click to Embiggen)

Goose Island Rare Bourbon County Brand Stout (2015) - Yep, it looks like any of the other Bourbon Counties, black as night, minimal head, but if you swirl it around you can rustle some up. Smells amazing, huge wafts of caramel, vanilla, oak, and boozy bourbon. Only had a few ounces, so I made it last and just kept sniffing for a long time. Taste is like Bourbon County, only moreso. Sweet with caramel and vanilla, leavened by tons of oak and boozy bourbon. It's certainly hot and boozy, but I'm told it has mellowed a bit since the release (in November). Mouthfeel is full bodied, rich, and chewy, almost velvety, but very intense. Lots of boozy heat, might turn off some baby palates, but I'm totally into it and the base clearly stands up to the bourbon creating a harmonious middle ground. Obviously a sipping beer, but a glorious sipper. Overall, I hate to buy into the hype, but this was phenomenal. A

Beer Nerd Details: 14.8% ABV bottled (500 ml capped and boxed, 3-4 ounce pour). Drank out of a tulip glass on 6/9/16.

It was a great event, and I didn't even mention the best part. Everyone who came got entered into a free raffle, and guess who won? Yep, I'm a lucky SOB and now the proud owner of a bottle of my own. I will, naturally, have to share this with some friends at some point, but I'm quite happy to be in such a position!

* The marketing line here is that they "discovered" these "lost" barrels, which is just the latest in a long line of bourbons that have used this excuse to jack up prices lately. Either these distilleries are just blowing smoke or they have completely incompetent inventory management practices. In this case, at least, the bourbon wasn't released, indicating that maybe they really were lost, but still.