A Decade Under the Imperial Stout

a celebratory barrel-aged imperial stout, conditioned on 10 different ingredients, selected by 10 different breweries

Mashed, as always, with a base of local barley malt and injected with a decadent blend of the finest caramel, chocolate and roasted malts. Fermented with our preferred stout yeast strain for an unbelievably thick body and luxurious mouthfeel. Transferred into freshly dumped, superbly saturated bourbon barrels and aged for a very long time. And here friends, after the extended slumber, is where things got really fun. We asked 10 of our favorite and most impactful imperial stout creators if they would select a decadent ingredient that perhaps best represents their brewery. The list, as you can see, is really awesome, super fun and definitely offers something very different from our typical barrel program releases.

With most of the selected ingredients receiving a subtle in-house toasting, we’d be lying if we said this celebratory imperial stout was anything other than excessive. But hey, we are turning 10 as a brewery so why not be excessive! That said, it’d be easy to look at that ingredient list and be skeptical. Honestly, we shook our heads at each other on a few occasions while putting it all together.

The end result couldn’t be more harmonious.

We have always taken a great deal of pride in finding the balance in beer but just didn’t quite know how we would achieve it with this one. Waltzing in and out of each and every one of the ingredients, each smell and sip honestly leads us to different conclusions. On a most recent excursion, we get huge swathy notes of drinking chocolate, vanilla-soaked charred wood, toasted mallow and double pulls of espresso that fades into a spoonful of nutella. Something that obviously only comes around once every 10 years, we can’t wait to see what is in store for the next decade, under the influence.