Oskar Blues Death by King Cake

Oskar Blues is one of those breweries that usually finds a way to pique my curiosity with each new release. They always seem to release something fun & creative on a large scale. When I think of fun & creative recent beers I really enjoyed from them, last year’s Guns-N-Rosé immediately comes to mind. That, and their amazing Barrel Aged Ten Fidy variants. The Hot Buttered Rum was my particular favorite from the series.

What I am trying to say is their expanding catalog is full of great beers that, when available in limited quantities, would get me to call in a favor to my Uncle in Colorado or even drop everything and go chase down a can. Locally, in Western New York their beers no longer require the intense chasing they used to. However their brand new white porter Death By King Cake did give me that urge to chase it down. This happened for two reasons. The first being, I love their Death By Coconut Irish Porter, so playing off of that name is a smart way to get my attention.. The second being, I had never tried a white porter before and I wasn’t really sure what that was.

When I finally got my hands on a can, I cracked it open, poured it into a glass and felt something I wasn’t used to with Oskar Blues: disappointment. Most of the promised adjuncts were missing from the aroma. There was a hint of vanilla, a touch of chocolate and a whole lot of grains, especially corn. The closest comparison I had for the beer is Genesee Cream Ale. That’s why I chose the glass in the picture above. The taste was pretty close to Genesee Cream Ale as well but with a noticeable vanilla creaminess. Call me crazy but nutmeg & cinnamon are fairly strong flavors and I honestly could not find them here. Same goes for the orange peel which is also strangely missing. I got a hint of chocolate but really had to look for it. All I really got out of Death By King Cake was the taste of an inexpensive cream ale in a 4 dollar can.

This is a really disappointing beer from a fantastic brewery. On paper, it sounds like a great idea but the execution is lacking. The price point does it no favors either. I would recommend skipping this one and hope that this was an anomaly in the Oskar Blues catalog.

Overall rating: 2/5

Lagunitas Willettized Imperial Stout

After my last blog, I felt it was necessary to not only write about a beer but write about a big beer. Yes, I am writing about a barrel aged imperial stout again. I’ll do something different next week, I promise, but I had some thoughts about a particular beer I felt like sharing and it happened to be a rye whiskey barrel aged imperial stout. 

The first time I tried a Lagunitas Imperial Stout aged in Willett Bourbon Barrels left a lasting impression on me. It was 2016, I was having dinner with friends at The Stoneyard In Webster, NY(now known as The Beer Hall) and was awaiting the arrival of apps & a smoked prime rib sandwich. I remember thinking it was very good and was happy I tried it. In the weeks that followed, I found myself thinking about it more and more. As you can imagine, I was thrilled when this beer arrived in bottles the following year and they were using rye barrels instead of bourbon barrels.  I have been eagerly seeking it out every year  since. 

I was particularly excited to see Willettized arrive on shelves here last week and immediately purchased a 4-pack at the absurdly reasonable price of 12.99. I poured one in a glass the first chance I  got. The aroma of this year's batch is particularly fabulous. A lot of oak up front, rye, a touch of vanilla, molasses, dark fruits(especially cherry), roasted malt, and caramel with surprisingly very little coffee, especially considering this is a coffee stout. I did get more of the coffee once I took a sip. It added a bit of earthiness to the flavor profile. It also played a really nice complimentary role to everything else here. Chocolate, roasted malt, smoke, oak, cherry & rye are really at the forefront here. They are smoothed out by a very pleasant marshmallow sweetness before a warm, woody, earthy, boozy finish. The coffee is present the whole time and really compliments all of the other flavor notes here. Outside of wanting a little more body here, I really do not have any complaints. This is a huge 12.4% imperial stout and with each sip, I am floored by the outrageous price point it is sold at. I strongly believe this is easily one of the best values in beer.

Right now, there are a lot of amazing barrel aged beers just sitting on shelves everywhere but there are very few that have the low price point that Lagunitas Willettized has. That makes it a pretty safe bet if you are looking for a solid barrel aged imperial stout to beat the cold weather. With each passing year, I continue to be impressed with this beer and much like the first time I had it, this stout with leave an impact on me long after my last bottle of it is gone. 

Pabst Blue Ribbon Hard Coffee

I wanted to kick off the first blog of 2020 writing about something fun & different. I am not talking about writing about something entirely different, I just wanted to kick off the year with something other than a barrel aged stout. Yes I know, there are a lot of other styles of beer out there I could pick from, I just felt I wanted to start out 2020 with something unexpected. That is why the first blog of the year is about Pabst Blue Ribbon Hard Coffee.

From the moment I read Pabst was releasing a hard coffee, I admit I felt confused, curious and disgusted all at the same time. It seemed almost silly to me that the brewers of a beer I used to chase insanely cheap liquor with at a local bar was making a hard coffee that would cost over 10 dollars for a 4-pack. The last time I felt this way was with Naturdays. However, with Naturdays I could at least see what Anheuser-Busch was doing. They were looking to create a cheap, easy-drinking summer beer with a brand people don’t typically associate with drinkable beer. With Pabst Blue Ribbon Hard Coffee, I kept thinking, “Do we really need this?” That question remained in my head until I opened a can and took a sip.

Normally at this point I break down the aroma and tasting notes but this is clearly not beer, so I will skip that for this blog. I’ll just cut to the chase and tell you it’s surprisingly good. It reminded me of drinking a bottle of Starbucks Vanilla Frappuccino with a touch of Kahlua. The Kahlua note comes through in the finish reminding you that this is a 5% ABV beverage that should be consumed responsibly.

While Pabst Blue Ribbon Hard Coffee is surprisingly good, it is also unbearably sweet. As a black coffee drinker, I absolutely could not consume more than one can at a time. That is the reason I honestly doubt I will buy another 4-pack.

Overall, I am glad I tried Pabst Blue Ribbon Hard Coffee. It is a fun gimmick beverage that I am sure will be successful for their brand in the short-term, but I doubt this will be around for long. That last sentence certainly has the potential not to age well but I am standing by it. I just think it makes more sense if you are looking for coffee with booze in it to just add your preferred liquor to your own coffee or just buy a coffee flavored beer instead. To answer the "do we really need this?" question I pondered earlier, I would say the answer is no. However, I think if you are curious about it, PBR Hard Coffee is worth a try.

Happy 2020! Cheers!