What a month November's been! I'm sprinting to the finish line of NaNoWriMo (50k words is calling my name) and just about ready to deck the halls around the blog to ring in the Christmas season. But before we start the Old Saint Nick welcoming procedures, we have one Maple Month offering to make.
We're finishing Maple Month proper as we started it: With a barleywine from Jackie O's. But, it's more than just a barleywine, it's a barleywine cuvée. It's Cellar Cuvée 15.
Surprise! It's another cider post!
Seriously, I had such a rough time finding maple beers to get to this season. Luckily, the cider makers have come through for me.
Maple syrup and hard cider has been one of my favorite flavor combinations since I first stumbled upon it. I'm excited to see how Shacksbury's Sugar Shack, today's cider, plays into the combo.
That cider is (as you probably deduced from the title of this post) 1911 Established's Maple Bourbon Barrel Aged Hard Cider. I'm going into my can with no prior experience regarding the cider itself or the cidery. Here's hoping its worth my initial excitement!
Happy November (I know this is the second post this month, but it's the first true post)! This is a big month for me. It sits right between my two favorite holidays. It's National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), a challenge where I (and many other similarly-inclined fools) attempt to write fifty-thousand words of a novel in just a short thirty days. But, most importantly for the blog, it's Maple Month, wherein I explore beers and ciders crafted with my favorite adjunct, maple syrup.
We're starting off strong this month with a barleywine from Jackie O's. Calling back to Southeast Ohio's history, Iron Furnace is an ode to the Hope Furnace, a spot near and dear to my heart. Let's see if I'll hold the resulting beer in equal esteem.
And here we are. Like I promised in this month's first post, I've saved the biggest beer for last, which is especially fitting as I crossed the 50,000-word NaNoWriMo finish line this morning (go, me!). Today, we're taking a look at a special beer from one of my original favorite craft breweries (has it really been two and a half years since they got screen time on the blog? Wow, too long).
Nestle in, friends. Grab a strong maple beer of your own. Throw another log on the fire against late-November chill. Tonight, we're going big and heavy. Tonight, I'm drinking and telling you about Dogfish Head's Wake Up World Wide Stout.
11/20/23: Tales from the Cellar--Goose Island Beer Co.'s Bourbon County Brand #4 Stout (Revisited)
5:48 PMI'm making the second post of 2023's Maple Month a fun one. I try to nab an extra bottle/can of the beers I discuss in November whenever I'm able, in the hope that I'm able to revisit them some Maple Month down the road. I have a small shelf in my beer cabinet dedicated to this.
Do you remember two years back when I did up Goose Island's maple-forward Bourbon County Brand Stout? I loved it, giving it my highest recommendation. Since I'm keeping things compressed this month, I figured I could break into my second (of two!) bottles of the beer today. Let's see if BCBS Special #4 is just as good at three years old as it was at one.
Now, with all of that out of the way, let's get to Toppling Goliath's Rush Hollow.
November really threw me for a loop. I didn't get to finish Maple Month here on the blog, nor did I finish my 50,000 words for NaNoWriMo. I took tasting notes for the final beer I was going to post about and snapped the necessary pictures for it. However, I didn't care for the beer and, because of how hectic the end of the month was for me, I decided not to actually make the whole post.
This weekend I plan on getting to the Christmas beers I have lined up. As such, I thought it best to provide you with all I have of that final maple beer. Without further ado, here are my pictures and unedited/unrefined tasting notes on Timber Ales and The Seed's imperial maple coffee stout, He Who Walks Among Monsters (that's an Untappd link):
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