Tröegs Scratch series of beers is always interesting, but every once in a while, they hit on something great. This beer, brewed in honor of (or perhaps to spite) the (now lapsed) Mayan apocalypse, is a big imperial stout. Their description sez: “If your tongue doesn’t disintegrate as a result of the birthday party cheesecake jellybean BOOM, it most certainly will wreak major havoc on your taste buds.” I don’t know what the “birthday party cheesecake jellybean BOOM” thing means at all, but I stumbled onto this beer on tap, and it melted my face. Makes me wish I made the trip out to Hershey to pick up some bottles. But who knows, maybe they’ll make this an addition to their regular lineup, a la Flying Mouflan. A man can hope.
Tröegs Scratch Beer 83 – 2012 (¿Impending Descent?) – Pours a deep black color with a finger of brown head. Smells lightly of chocolate and a little roast – not a strong aroma, but that’s more the bar/glass than the beer (this has happened before at this place). Taste is full of rich malt sweetness, light caramel and plenty of chocolate with just a hint of roastiness peeking through and lingering into the aftertaste. Nice, well balanced bitterness in the finish. It’s a great imperial stout flavor profile. Mouthfeel is full bodied, thick, gooey, and a little chewy. Lightly carbonated but enough to be appropriate for the style. It’s a big, heavy beer, a sipping beer, but I really don’t detect much booze at all either, which is impressive. Overall, fantastic, absolutely delicious beer. I want moar. A
Beer Nerd Details: 10.9% ABV on tap. Drank out of a goblet on 12/23/12.
This could easily have made my top 40 for 2012, but I had lazily let the notes linger in Evernote instead of reviewing it. Perhaps I’ll make an exception for next year. If I remember. I doubt there are any bottles of this hanging around, but if I see any, I’m going to snatch them up.
Glad to see you were able to find Impending Descent. I noticed they did some distribution with this one as there were a lot of area events during the week after the release.
I have quite a few bottles left that I’d be willing to trade, maybe for something from 3 Floyds if you can get more of that. I’ve been wanting to try some of their beers, but haven’t seen any around here.
Alas, I have no 3 Floyds beers left. I had to trade for them on BA… They don’t distribute this far east, but people in the midwest (Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana) can get that stuff super easy. You don’t need supur .rar wales to trade for them, just stuff that doesn’t get distributed out there…
I thought you might have traded for them. Hard to tell though because I’ve come across a few beers here and there in Philly bottle shops that don’t get distro’d around here.
I’m still looking to make my first trade. Most of what I’ve seen on BA are rare beer trades, so I guess I’ll have to look harder to find a trade with non-rares.