Founders Backwoods Bastard

Backwoods Bastard is a bourbon-barrel aged scotch ale. Yummy!

Brewer's notes: Expect lovely, warm smells of, oaky bourbon barrels, sweet caramel and roasted malts, a bit of earthy spice and scintilla of dark fruit. It’s a kick-back sipper made to excite the palate.

BeerAdvocate: Expect lovely, warm smells of single malt scotch, oaky bourbon barrels, smoke, sweet caramel and roasted malts, a bit of earthy spice and a scintilla of dark fruit. It’s a kick-back sipper made to excite the palate.

Tasting notes

20260501

I drank the 2nd bottle from a four-pack and continue to be impressed. The beer is complex with a balance of sweetness and something else. Bourbon is present but not overpowerings. Sort of a liquid pecan pie? I am upgrading the rating.

Rating = 6.5 glasses.

2 Jan. 2021
Still good.

5 June 2020
Backwoods Bastard is a bourbon-barrel aged Scotch Ale. It is yummy. Barrel aging a Scotch ale is rare and a great combination. Bourbon is very evident but not overpowering.

Rating = 6 glasses.

Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout

Black Chocolate Stout is one of my favorite beers.

Brewer's Notes: This is the famous Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout. In the 18th century, Catherine the Great, Empress of Russia, ordered a stout to be sent to her from England. This beer was brewed strong and hoppy to survive the sea voyage, and it arrived in perfect condition. Soon "Russian Imperial Stout" became the toast of the Russian aristocracy. Brewed since 1994, our Black Chocolate Stout has itself become a modern classic, heralded the world over. It achieves its dark chocolate aroma and flavor through the artful blending of six malts and three distinct mashes. Properly kept, it will improve in the bottle for many years. This stout is the toast of the winter season in many countries, and there is nothing better to enjoy with chocolate desserts, cheesecake, ice cream, fine cheeses and roaring fireplaces.

Given this beer’s higher ABV and sturdy character, we think it’s a prime candidate for cellaring. Find a cool, dry spot away from light sources, and see how it changes in the years to come. You never quite know what will happen when you age a beer: perhaps the body will smooth out, notes of vanilla, oak, and tannins will come to the front, or hints of leather and soy sauce will make themselves known. No matter what, remember that beer is meant for drinking, so don’t keep it to yourself for too long.

Beeradvocate

Tasting Notes

20260101: I drank a bottle of unknown vintage last night. It was wonderful and more enjoyable than Great Divide Yeti. BBCS has earned its rating. Perhaps Great Divide Yeti is too massive.

251227: I thought about downgrading the rating to 6 after drinking two cans of Great Divide Yeti.

07 Dec. 2024
I drank a 2021 vintage. It was fantastic, with a nice bite and chocolate flavor. I boosted the rating to 6.5 and thought about 7.

Rating = 6.5 glasses.

Nov. 2023: I recently drank a fresh 2023 bottle and another one-year old 2022 vintage. The fresh bottle was not as good as I remember. I will try another bottle to learn more. The one-year old bottle was a wonderful stout. Plenty of chocolate flavor and pleasant. I didn't detect charcoal bite in either one.

02 Oct. 2022: Drank another bottle from the purchase in late 2021. Still a fine beer with a nice charcoal bite at the finish.

Rating = 5.5 glasses

30 Jan. 2022: This is a recollection of some beer I purchased late 2021. I like the first bottle so much that I went back and bought a 2nd 6-pack. I am back to loving this beer. Loads of chocolaty flavor with a bit of a charcoal bite. Yummy. I think that it is my new favorite imperial stout.

Rating = 6 glasses. 

24 Oct. 2020: I pulled my last bottle from Winter 2019 from the cellar last night. The beer was a delight. Rich, chocolaty, and smooth. The only question was whether the rating was 5 glasses or 6. Given the five previous reviews, I left the rating @ 5.

Rating = 5 glasses

15 May 2020: BBCS has earned its reputation as one of the great Imperial Stouts. Tonight's bottle is dated Winter 15-16, meaning the beer has aged about 4.5 years. The beer is delivers a massive dose of chocolate malts with a little bitter charcoal bite at the end.

BeerAdvocate rates it as Outstanding, the 1,977th best beer overall, and the 117th best Russian Imperial Stout. My last rating = 4 glasses.

Rating = 5 glasses.

12 June 2014: Shared a 2006-07 bottle from my cellar last night. It was wonderful: complex, sweet, chocolate, with a nice mouthfeel. A good sipper. 

Rating = 6 glasses

1101: A year-old 2009-10 bottle. Chocolate malt w/ a flash of charcoal. Very nice. 

1008: A 2006-07 bottle, 4.5 yr. old. Chocolate nose. Almost soy but not, Bitter/sour end. Dry port? 

1004: A 3-yr-old bottle from 2006-07. First sip was bittersweet chocolate and charcoal dust. Sippable and quaffable. Upgraded from 4 glasses. 

1001: A fresh bottle from 09-10. Dark chocolate syrup. Downgraded from 5 glasses. 

0912: A 3-yr. old bottle from 06-07. A delightful, deep, dark, stout. Some port peeking out? Upgraded from 4 glasses.

 

Comments: This beer seems to vary slightly by year and improves w/ age.

Previous ratings: 5, 6, 4, 3, then 4 glasses.

Rating: 5 glasses

0909: A bottle 1.5+ years old. Bitter chocolate with old ale sour taste at finish when cold yielding to bitter chocolate throughout.

Rating: 4 glasses

0811: The Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout I had on tap tonight at Joe's Inn is a really nice beer. BBCS is a big Imperial Stout. Reviewers on BeerAdvocate rated it as one of the top 100 beers on the planet on 29 December 2005. As the name suggests, it has chocolate flavors. I have tasted several vintages of BBCS with mixed reactions. The most recent release seemed too hot. On tap, the beer was flavorful and balanced. I don't know if the difference is draft v. bottle or 2008-09 v. 2007-08; but, I think that the tap makes the difference. Chocolate is the predominate flavor but coffee and smoke rear their heads, too. Joe's Inn is a neighborhood restaurant in Richmond, VA. It sells BBCS as a seasonal item for $3.50 a pint. At this price the beer is a great deal. It was fantastic w/ a hamburger. Oliver Garrett, the brewmaster of Brooklyn Brewery, is a big advocate of pairing food and beer. His book, The Brewmaster's Table, is a classic. For a sample of his thoughts, click here.

Cantillon Kriek 100% Lambic

Brewer's Notes

Blend of Lambics and sour cherries at a ratio of 200g per litre.

A beer with a tart red fruit flavor and subtle almond notes.
Kriek will be at its fruitiest when enjoyed young. Aging allows the Lambic to fully express itself, sometimes at the expense of the fruitiness.

Notes on the bottle
A blend of the world's greatest Lambics, with whole cherries fermented right in the cask. The authentic Kriek Lambic! 

Beer Advocate
Blend of Lambics and Morello cherries at a rate of 200g per litre.

A beer with a tangy taste of red fruits and subtle almond flavors.
Kriek will be most fruity when enjoyed young. Age allows the Lambic to fully express itself, at the expense of the fruit.

Our certified organic sour cherries come to us from Türkiye.

The fruits are blended with a Lambic aged on average 20 months, at a rate of 200g of fruit per liter. Since morello cherries are a powerful fruit, we need to choose a Lambic with enough character to harmonize with the fruit.

After a maceration of two to three months, the Lambic will have extracted colors, aromas and flavors from the morello cherries.

It will then be blended with a one-year-old Lambic, which will provide the sugars necessary for the second fermentation in the bottle.

We work exclusively with fresh fruit, and just like wine, Cantillon beers have a vintage effect.The weather plays a major role in the ripeness and quality of the fruit, which is why a fruit beer will vary slightly from year to year.

Tasting Notes

20290405 Bottled date = 20250127. A great beer but a titch more sour and less tart and the cherry was a titch heavy.

Rating = 6.5 glasses

20251118 Bottled date = 20240716. What a difference a year in the bottle makes. A fantastic tart beer with a solid but not overbearing cherry backbone.

Rating = 7 glasses

202508 Bottled date = 20250127. Too sweet and too much cherry for my taste. I felt like I was drinking a fruit drink.

Rating= 2.5 glasses.

Dogfish Head 120 Minute IPA

120 Minute IPA is a big beer. I have read it described as a triple IPA. Dogfish Head reports that IBU = 120 and abv = 18%. Wow!

Brewer's notes: "Clocking in at 15-20% ABV, 120 Minute IPA is continually hopped with a copious amount of high-alpha American hops throughout the boil and whirlpool, and then dry-hopped with a boatload of hops. Unfiltered and abundantly hoppy, it's the Holy Grail for hopheads!"

BeerAdvocate: "Too extreme to be called beer? 120 Minute IPA is brewed to a colossal 45-degree plato, boiled for a full two hours while being continuously hopped with high-alpha American hops, then dry-hopped daily in the fermenter for a month and aged for another month on whole-leaf hops!"

Tasting Notes

2025 08 Bottled date = 2019 08 23. The beer i6l.s a delight. Tons of sweet malt. A nice hoppiness but the sweet dominates. A hoppy English Barleywine. The hops are still present and have mellowed substantially in six years. Aging = good!

Rating = 6.5 glasses.

2312: I drank the first of a six-pack dated 2017, making the beer 3.3-years old. I enjoyed it while Lisa and I enjoyed a fire and put up our new artificial Christmas tree. Perhaps 120 Minute IPA will become a Christmas tradition. The taste has mellowed some but still resembled a BIG and rough IPA. Lots of hops and plenty of malt for balance. I might not have picked 6 glasses for the rating but enjoyed it enough to leave the rating unchanged.

Rating = 6 glasses

2006: I drank a second bottle dated 1908 last night with a sweet dessert and the pairing was fantastic. 120 Minute bursts with hop flavor with big malt for balance (and alcohol) - much more a HUGE IPA than a barleywine. The bottle-date means that the beer is about 1-year old.

Rating = 6 glasses

2002: I drank the first of a six-pack bottle dated 1908. It tastes like a BIG English Barleywine. BeerAdvocate calls it an American Imperial IPA and says abv varies from 15-20% and IBU = 120. Bottle says abv = 18%. Bitter hops fight to emerge from a sweet raisin mash, followed by big alcohol blast. It is a 2+ hr. sipper. A 12 oz. bottle usually goes for $9 or $10 dollars. I just picked up two four-packs from Costco for $24.99 each. I plan to drink them over the next six years.

Rating = 6 glasses.

Cantillon Gueuze 100% Lambic

Brewer's notes

Assembly of Lambics of different ages.
Beer with a tangy and fruity taste, woody and delicate aromas, long finish on the palate.
Long-life beer with evolving taste.
Brasserie Cantillon Lambics are called “young” after one year of aging and reach full maturity after three years. Young beers contain the natural sugars necessary for second fermentation in the bottle. The three-year-old beers bring their bouquet and finesse.
Gueuze is the fruit of a complex blend of Lambics of different tastes and ages, preserved in oak barrels. The most important role of the brewer is taste. He will have to taste around ten Lambics from different barrels to finally select five or six. This is how Gueuze 100% Lambic is made, carrying the original character of the beers from Brasserie Cantillon. Each blending vat will give birth to a different Gueuze. The natural elements available to us do not allow us to manufacture a "standard" product.
Arranged horizontally in the cellar, the bottles will remain there for an average of one year to allow the transformation of sugars into carbon dioxide (second fermentation in bottles). The saturation of the beer occurs slowly and naturally. When Lambic becomes sparkling, it is called Gueuze.
In the 18th century, a Benedictine monk, Dom Pérignon, discovered champagne by blending different non-sparkling white wines. A century later, a Brabant brewer mixed several Lambics and caused a second fermentation in the bottle. La Gueuze was born. Until the 19th century, the people of Brussels and Brabançons drank mainly two beers, Lambic and Faro. The appearance of the glass bottle and the contribution of Dom Pérignon will revolutionize the small world of Brussels brewers. Gueuze then became the symbol beer of Brussels.

BeerAdvocate

Tasting notes

December 06, 2024

A recent purchase from Corks and Kegs. Any apple flavor was subdued. Tart with a good dose of bitter lemon zest. It earned a small upgrade in the rating.

Rating = 6.5 glasses

March 8, 2024
The second bottle has about 1.5 more years in the cellar. Similar reaction as below - tart but I wanted more and the apple flavor is not my favorite. Something about Belgium yeasts may be at work. St. Bernardus Abt 12 has a similar note. Downgrading rating to 6 glasses.

Nov. 25, 2022

First of two bottles scored from Corks and Kegs a few months ago. More apple-cidery and less lemon-vinegary and tart than I remembered or wanted. 

Rating: It is still wonderfully complex and refreshing with enough je ne sais quois for 7 glasses but I am downgrading it to 6.5 glasses.

(0911): A bottle at SD21 in NYC. Nice and tart and complex. A tiche milder than I remembered. Girardin rules.

Rating: 7 glasses 

Click here for a previous review. 

3 Fonteinen Oude Kriek Intens Rood

Intens Rood is a delicious "imperial" kriek.

Beeradvocate: "Made from 40% cherries."

Label notes: "Sour cherries were macerated on young peeted lambik and partly on two-year old straight lambik in a stainless steel tank. We blended with young and three-year old (!) lambik. 55% of the blend is old lambik and the final fruit intensity is 567 grams of sour cherries per liter. .... Ingredients: water, barley malt (60%), wheat malt (40%), sour cherries, old hops.

Tasting notes
February 2, 2024. I drank a bottle given to my by BG when she and SJ visited us for dinner. Wow! I really liked it. It is tart and the cherries give an additional punch of sour in the finish. Initial tartness stimulates the salivary glands. Some vinegar pops through, too. The cherry flavor is definitely noticeable but  does not overwhelm the taste. I liked it so much that I went to the beer store to buy another bottle. (I also picked up a bottle of Oude Kriek, Rodenbach Vintage 2018, and De Ranke Kriek).

I am giving it a rating of 7 glasses after one tasting.

Postscript. Having tasted Oude Kriek, I am downgrading the rating to 6.5.

Rating = 6.5 glasses.

Allagash Tripel

Allagash Tripel is my favorite tripel. The flavor is a mix of spicy, citrus, a flash of sweet alcohol, and a titch of clove. It is an old friend and continues to impress. Other tripels can be too much clove.

Brewer's notes: This award-winning celebration of a classic Belgian beer style is filled with notes of passion fruit and honey. Its simple recipe yields a full range of elegant flavor and finishes refreshingly dry. Its golden, crisp, and refined profile pulls from a tradition that began centuries ago in Belgian Abbeys.

BeerAdvocate: This strong golden ale is marked by passion fruit and herbal notes in the aroma, with suggestions of banana and honey in the complex palate. The Tripel has a remarkably long and smooth finish.

Tasting notes

2311: Another delicious bottle last night with Lisa's birthday dinner.

Rating = 6.5 glasses

2004

Rating = 6 glasses, but thinking about 7.

Dupont Avec les bons voeux

Brewer's Notes 

The Bons Vœux is a blond top fermentation beer with refermentation in the bottle.

Since 1970, the brewery has been brewing a special beer to give as a new years present to their best clients. (the name of this beer “Avec les bons Vœux de la brasserie Dupont » means « With the best wishes of the brewery Dupont » ).
Because of the increasing success, they started to commercialise this “cadeau” but kept the name. Although the demands were considerable, only a small quantity was brewed, so they had to make a reservation list, even months before new year.

This Bons Vœux is coppery blond, has very fine hop aromas and tastes bitter, fruity and mild.

Our selection of yeasts, in combination with a long during riping process, on a “dry hopping” base, are creating a typical and complex aroma and taste.

A real refermentation in the bottle, which will continue for a long time in your cellar, result in a harmonious and well-balanced beer, full of unexpected and complex aromas.

Notes from BeerAdvocate

Les Bons Voeux means best wishes, which is what Brasserie Dupont sends with this very special saison ale brewed for the holidays. Redolently aromatic, rich and velvety.

Rich gold color, fragrant (lemony with hints of pepper, banana and clove), as all the beers of Dupont are with a full, deep malt richness that lingers on your tongue for what seems the whole holiday season. Considered by some the finest offering from this unparalleled Brewery. “The best Belgian beer, if ever there could be such an award...a sumptuous, seductive 9.5% beer. Because of it’s intensity, I would recommend the novice graduate to this beer. However, if a saison that is starting to lean towards being a triple appeals to you, and if its in season, don’t hesitate.”

Reviews

202307

Another wonderful bottle. It tastes so good after I have not had one for a while. Easily 6.5 glasses and may merit 7.

Rating = 6.5 glasses

202203
The beer continues to impress. It's rating has varied from 7 to 6.

Rating = 6.5 glasses.

201501

This is the Christmas special version by Dupont. It is wonderful. Hardy without being big. A subtle touch of spice. Yummy.
6 glasses

Earlier review.

Duvel

Nov. 14, 2022

A fantastic beer but may lack the je ne sais quois for 7 glasses.

Rating = 6.5 glasses

May 15, 2020

Duvel is a fantastic beer. It is THE Belgian Pale Ale. A great introduction to craft beer and to Belgian beer. Here are earlier posts. The picture to the right is AFTER a very easy pour. 

BeerAdvocate rates it a World Class, 823rd best beer overall, and the BEST Belgian Strong Pale Ale. I flip flop between 6 glasses and 7.

My rating (today) is 7.