Be still my heart.
On Saturday, March 15, Quest will release its first bottled offering: A bourbon barrel-aged version of its year-round Kaldi Imperial Coffee Stout. The release will come in the form of 750 ml. bottles with a total of 450 bottles being released (limited to two per person) for $20 a pop. You can see the bottle artwork here. Quest’s Don Richardson and Andrew Watts – the rockstars that they are – will even autograph your bottle for you.
The release goes down at noon on the 15th.
This Saturday, January 25, Conquest will celebrate its first anniversary with an all-day party at the brewery. The highlight of that party will be the release of The Finisher, Conquest’s 17.5% imperial stout brewed with honey and brown sugar and fermented with champagne yeast. With the release of the highly desired beer just a few days away, the brewery on Wednesday announced details about how Saturday’s release will proceed.
They grow up so fast, don’t they? It’s been about three years since Westbrook opened its door to the public, and in keeping with tradition, the brewery has released its much-anticipated anniversary brew.
In addition, a few brand new brews will be on tap at the brewery this weekend to celebrate the occasion.
For its third anniversary, Westbrook brewed Orange Bliss, a 9.1% chocolate orange imperial stout. Early reports suggest it lives up to its name: a rich, chocolatey imperial stout with a strong orange-forward flavor. The beer was released in the tasting room late last week and hit distribution Tuesday. Expect to find it at your local beer shop soon.
Orange Bliss follows last year’s Cap’n Skoon’s Ballistic Stout and the first anniversary Mexican Cake.
And starting Thursday, December 19, the brewery will celebrate three years of great SC beer by tapping some special new treats. In addition to Orange Bliss, Mr. Chipper (a Flanders Red aged in red wine barrels for nearly three years) and Rhubarb Remix (Weisse Weisse Baby with rhubarb and strawberries added) will be available on draft and in bottles at the brewery’s tasting room.
Mark your calendars: Columbia’s Conquest will release The Finisher, its highly desired 17.5% imperial stout, on Saturday, January 25.
Conquest has long-planned to release the massive imperial stout – brewed with brown sugar and honey and fermented with champagne yeast – around the time of its first anniversary. And after fermenting for a few months, the beer will soon be bottled and readied for sale at a special release party.
Due to state law, the beer cannot legally be sold on draft, so it’ll be released in 22 oz. bombers only. If you’ve been to the Conquest tasting room, you’ve seen the design for the label artwork (affectionately known as “Angry Jesus”) looming over the bar. No word yet on per-person bottle limits or how many bottles will be available.
The beer’s name comes from the eponymous track by metal band Oh, Sleeper. The brewery recently received approval from the band to use the song’s lyrics on the label artwork.
In addition to the release of The Finisher, Conquest will also debut its 10.5% Brutus imperial stout and possibly another unannounced new release. Plus, there will be a food truck rodeo featuring nearly every mobile food vendor in the Capital City.
Find more details about the event here.
Following the news last week that COAST would be bottling this year’s vintage of its barrel-aged Blackbeerd imperial stout this week comes the news that bottles of the beer will be released beginning this week.
Early Tuesday, COAST announced bombers of this year’s BA Blackbeerd will be available for purchase at the brewery beginning Thursday, December 5. This year’s release was aged in the same Blanton’s bourbon barrels as the 2012 vintage, giving the beer a more oaky characteristic in contrast to the bourbon-forward release last year. A total of 90 cases were bottled, with 20 sent to stores and 70 available at the brewery. As usual, the bottles at $15 each, and there is no purchase limit other than the legal limit of 288 oz. per person.
The ship has sailed in once again, as COAST‘s barrel-aged Blackbeerd imperial stout is returning.
Starting Tuesday, the 9.3% stout will be available at the brewery on draft only. The beer will be bottled next week. Expect the announcement of a release date soon.
This will be the second version in a row aged in Blanton’s bourbon barrels for a year. The November 2012 release – considered by many to be the best yet – was also aged in Blanton’s barrels. The brewery says to expect more oak and less bourbon this time around. The beer has previously been aged in Jack Daniel’s and Buffalo Trace barrels, and then a blend of the two.
In what could be considered a preview of their first anniversary release, Conquest on Saturday tapped a one-off keg of a 12.4% imperial stout dubbed The Beginning. The beer was brewed with runnings from The Finisher, the 17.5% imperial stout which the brewery plans to release early next year.
The story of The Beginning goes like this: When the first batch of The Finisher was brewed a few weeks ago, the primary fermentation got a little out of hand, causing an excess of foam to blow off of the fermenter. Instead of letting that beer go to waste, the runoff was collected and fermented in its own batch, yielding five gallons of what became The Beginning.
The beer was available at the brewery Saturday night only. Bottles of The Finisher will be sold at the brewery in a couple of months.
