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!