Imperial Stout Releases Headline This Black Friday

Goose Island Bourbon County 150 • Photo via Goose Island Brewing

Welcome to Beer Dabbler’s Freshies, our weekly rundown on the newest beers hitting the store shelves and taproom coolers in Minnesota from your favorite local and national breweries. 

By this point, the turkey and fixings should be half-digested. Which means it’s the perfect time to indulge some more, or maybe just to shop for bottled gifts for the beer lovers in your life. Black Friday is all about the shopping—and the drinking—as it marks the annual release of Bourbon County stout, along with several locally-brewed options.

While imperial stout and its many adjunct variants dominate the beer groups, there’s a wide variety on tap everywhere. Find a unique corn lager, plenty of baking spiced beers, dark Czech-style lagers, and even a bock poking in Central Minnesota.

The long weekend is a great excuse to hit a favorite brewery, check out a new one, or revisit a mainstay. Freshies provides a primer on what you might find on tap.

Each week, the Beer Dabbler team highlights five of the most tantalizing new beers that we’re most excited to try.

Badger Hill Barrel Aged Imperial Stout – Tapping today for Black Friday, including to-go options. The brewery also has gift bundles on sale for Small Business Saturday.

Duluth Cider Bliss – A semi-sweet cider with Wisconsin cranberries and fall seasonal herbs: sage, rosemary, and thyme.

Fair State More Is More? – Another barrel-aged stout, this 13.9% ABV collaboration with Pulpit Rock (Decorah, IA) offers malt-heavy oak and spirit notes without adjuncts.

Pryes Forêt De Cerise – A wild ale made with Balaton cherries. Available in bottles.

Schell’s Cave-Aged Barrel-Aged – A full-bodied dark lager aged in rye barrels. Available in limited supply in 6-packs, it offers a hint of spice with a “creamy vanilla-like finish,” Schell’s says.

New beers available this week

22 Northmen Brewing Company

Doppelbock – On tap this Saturday with outdoor bock poking and live music from 6–9 pm.

https://www.facebook.com/events/597069831534744/?ref=newsfeed

608 Brewing Company

• Black Label Nebulous Void – 608 uses “Black Label” to mark their standout barrels when aging the flagship Nebulous Void. “For its inaugural launch, we picked 2 Weller 7y bourbon barrels that aged for 12 months, blended them together, and let them rest on Madagascar, Vanuatu, and Comoros vanilla beans, added at twice the rate we normally use,” the brewery explains. Expect big flavors of toasted marshmallow, caramel, vanilla wafers, bourbon, and more. 12.9% ABV and sold in 500-milliliter bottles. On sale at 10 am today.
• Imperial Blueberry Coconut Crisp – An imperial pastry sour with blueberry, coconut, vanilla, and cinnamon. 8% ABV and sold in 4-packs.
• S’moretorious – A big, roasty stout base with added marshmallow, cocoa nibs, and graham cracker, brewers in collaboration with Marto Brewing Co. (Sioux City, IA). 12% ABV and sold in 2-packs.

Alloy Brewing Company

• Caffeinated Holidaze – A traditionally-inspired ale recipe with added cold press coffee, cinnamon, and nutmeg for the holiday season. 6.2% ABV, 40 IBU.
• Cherry Cordial Sweet Stout – A 5.9% ABV, 32 IBU milk stout with cherry and chocolate flavors.
• Hard Rapids Cranberry Lime 2.0 – Cranberry and lime combine in this hard seltzer recipe. “Version 2.0 features a crisp and clean seltzer base, allowing the lime and cranberries to shine through,” Alloy says. 5.8% ABV.

Bad Weather Brewing Company

• 2020 Calamity – Aged in bourbon and rye whiskey barrels from J. Carver Distiller, this Russian imperial stout goes on sale exclusively in a mixed barrel-aged bottle 3-pack at 12 pm today, sold with 2021 Calamity and Cauld Weather.
• 2021 Calamity – This year’s batch of Russian imperial stout was aged in J. Carver bourbon and single malt whiskey barrels. In addition to malt sweetness and assertive bitterness from the big ABV, expect notes of chocolate, roast, and dark fruits, Bad Weather says.
• Cauld Weather – Available at noon today, this wee heavy style beer was aged in rye whiskey barrels. “It pours deep brown in color, featuring heavy chocolate and caramelized malt flavors formed from an extended boil,” the brewery says.

Badger Hill Brewing Company

• Barrel Aged Imperial Stout – Top Flight selection.

Bauhaus Brew Labs

Bauhaus has a new BOLO hard seltzer sampler pack available. All gluten-free and 5.0% ABV, the new flavors are:

• Sour Blood Orange
• Sour Cherry Lime
• Sour Cranberry
• Sour Green Apple

Bell’s Brewery   

• Best Brown
• Bright White – A new Wheat Series release, this beer is sold in bottles, cans, and on draft and offers “A mix of delicious clove and fruity aromas without any spices,” the brewery says.

BlackStack Brewing

• Amarillo By Morning – A West Coast-style IPA made with Amarillo hops, brewed in collaboration with Pinthouse Brewing (Austin, TX). 7.5% ABV.
• Disintegration – A quadruple IPA at 12.1% ABV, this hop-heavy hitter was made with Citra Cryo, Sabro Cryo, Mosaic Cryo, Amarillo Cryo, Azacca Cryo, Cashmere Cryo, Idaho 7 Cryo, Ekuanot Cryo.
• Pyramid Scheme – A collaboration with the soon-to-open California-based Slice Beer Co. Pyramid Scheme is a triple IPA with Strata, Simcoe, Motueka, and Nelson Sauvin hops. 10.0% ABV.
• Viewers Like You – Yet another collaboration, this time it’s not with a brewery, but with local TPT television. Viewers Like You is an “apple pie shrub sour” at 6.7% ABV.
• Wild Times – A new barrel-aged golden sour ale with passion fruit, guava, and vanilla, aged in bourbon, rum, and wine barrels. Available in limited 750-milliliter bottles.

Castle Danger Brewery

• Greetings from Bruges – A taproom-only Belgian-style IPA.

Disgruntled Brewing

• Just like Momma Used to Make – The fourth in their pie-style sour ale series is a Blackberry Pie ale with blackberries, plus graham cracker, vanilla, and cinnamon. 6.8% ABV.

Duluth Cider   

• Bliss – Top Flight selection.

Eastlake Craft Brewery

• Quinceañera Cake Beer – This is an amber lager infused with fudge and vanilla, to tap on Saturday as the Midtown Global Market celebrates its fifteenth anniversary.

Elm Creek Brewing Co.

• Arcane Sanctuary – A New England-style IPA with melon and passion fruit notes, plus a light coconut finish. 6.5% ABV.
• GLOW Holiday Gingerbread Ale – Exclusive at the GLOW Holiday Festival (through Jan. 2), this holiday ale includes brown sugar, molasses, vanilla, and baking spices.
• Rare Candy: Passionfruit, Peach and Pineapple – “The newest combination of flavors in our sours series. Full of strong passion fruit aromas on the nose, and a soft finish of peach and pineapple on the pallet for a well balanced tart kettle sour that is 6%,” Elm Creek explains. On draft and in Twin Cities-area liquor stores.

Fair State Brewing Cooperative

• Black Is Beautiful – Tapped on Wednesday, this is last year’s imperial stout, barrel-aged with figs, vanilla beans, and “a hint of holiday spice.”
• More Is More? – Top Flight selection.

Forager Brewery

• Millerzzzzz – A single keg of this limited barrel-aged imperial stout with vanilla and maple, was tapped on Wednesday. 13% ABV

Goose Island Brewery

Beer has changed a lot in recent years, but Black Friday is still Bourbon County day. This year’s lineup features:

• Bourbon County Cherry Wood Stout – “We took fully-matured Bourbon County Stout and finished it with toasted fruitwood,” the brewery says. The final product is complex with notes of red fruit, ripe cherry, and light toffee. 14.3% ABV.
• Bourbon County Classic Cola Stout – Lime, orange juice and zest, coriander, cassia bark, nutmeg, brown sugar, and vanilla were added to this barrel-aged imperial stout to give it whisky cola-like flavors. 14.1% ABV.
• Bourbon County Double Barrel Toasted Barrel Stout – “Our Double Barrel Toasted Barrel Stout was aged for one year in Elijah Craig’s Small Batch Bourbon Barrels, then another year in Elijah Craig Toasted Bourbon Barrels,” the brewery says, with chocolate, caramel, vanilla, marshmallow and oak flavors. 16% ABV.
• Bourbon County Fourteen Stout – A remake of the Fourteen recipe but with extra rye alongside the cassia bark, cocoa nibs, panela sugar, and coconut water ingredients.
• Bourbon County Reserve 150 Stout – Aged for one year in Old Forester’s 150th Anniversary Bourbon barrels, this version has chocolate, vanilla, coconut, molasses, almond, berry, and oak flavors. 15.6% ABV/
• Bourbon County Reserve Blanton’s Stout – “A truly unique reserve filled with rich dark chocolate and oak notes, finished with warm aromatics of baking spices such as clove, nutmeg, and cinnamon,” the brewery says. 15.4% ABV.
• Bourbon County Stout – The classic imperial stout, barrel-aged and blended between multiple bourbon barrel varieties, for chocolate and vanilla flavors with notes of oak, whiskey, molasses, caramel, berry, and almond.

Hoops Brewing

• No. 91 English Porter – A smooth-body porter with a balanced finish, the brewery says. 5% ABV.
• No. 1621 Cranfest – 4.5% ABV with limited availability.

Hop & Barrel Brewing Company – Spring Valley

The Hudson, WI-based brewery has opened a second location with its own brewhouse in southeastern Minnesota. The opening lineup includes:

• Barenaked Oats Stout
• Barrel-Aged Ridiculous Idiots
• Corn Drive⁣ Lager
• Hazy Valley Hazy IPA⁣⁣
• ⁣⁣Firstborn Red IPA
• Lakeless Pale Ale⁣
• Mixology – A fruited cocktail-inspired seltzer line.
• Sour Blonde⁣⁣

Lakeville Brewing

• Firefly 33 Veterans Blend Hazy IPA – A hazy IPA brewed with the Veterans blend of hops from Yakima Chief Hops, which raises funds for K9s for Warriors. This beer offers flavors of fresh citrus, and “Tang-like, herbally dank aromas,” Lakeville says. The name is in honor of a local, deceased Vietnam vet. 6.8% ABV.

Lupulin Brewing Company

• 10 Count – A new imperial black IPA, made in collaboration with Caleb Truax, and tapped last week.
• Belgian Dubbel – A 7.5% ABV, 25 IBU Belgian-style dubbel ale.
• Black Lager – A newly-tapped 5% ABV, 30 IBU black lager.

LynLake Brewery

• Ope, My Bad – A new non-alcoholic beer on tap, LynLake describes this as “a nutty, light-bodied amber ale with a caramel backbone and a subtle hop presence.”

Northbound Smokehouse & Brewpub

After closing to the public for the past month for a major remodel, the Minneapolis brewpub reopens today with the full Cigar Series lineup on tap, and more new/returning specialties:

• All In The Game – A honey oat lager that pours at 6.6% ABV, 20 IBU.
• Castro’s Reserve – Using Dictator imperial brown ale as a base, this rum barrel-aged version presents intensified tobacco flavors with notes of chocolate, dark cherry, oak, vanilla, and a little leather, all with a semi-creamy mouthfeel, Northbound says.
• Contraband – A bourbon barrel-aged Dictator. This takes the imperial brown base with added oak and vanilla notes as well as chocolate, dark cherry, and leather notes.
• Czech Dark Lager – A clean-body malt-forward lager with smooth chocolate and roast flavors and Saaz hop spiciness at the finish. 5.3% ABV, 26 IBU.
• Dictator – An imperial brown ale made with a 20% house cigar-smoked malt bill (cigars first soaked in rum), the beer offers sweet malt flavors with a dry tobacco finish, with more cigar tones coming through as the beer warms. 9.2% ABV, 32 IBU.
• Dopplebock

Oliphant Brewing

• 2Blazed2BPhased – A peaches and cream sour ale at 5% ABV.
• Last Years Talent – An imperial stout with coffee, almond, and cacao nibs added. 10% ABV.
• Spberry Squishy – This sour ale was made with added raspberry blackberry, almond, vanilla, lactose, and sea salt. 5% ABV.

PawPrint Brewery

• Puppies and Pancakes – A 6% ABV, 35 IBU brown ale with maple and french toast flavors.    Released
• Rum Barrel Aged Sour – Available in bottles now. “Very nice rum nose with a nice tart sour finish,” the brewery says.
• The Husky – A winter IPA that drinks smooth with citrus notes. 6% ABV, 45 IBU.

Pig Ate My Pizza Kitchen + Brewery

• Shots and Goggles – A “fruited cream IPA” made with pineapple, peach, and lactose. 7.3% ABV.
• Vienna Del Sol – “We got together with our friends at Nixta MPLS to brew another lager with their amazing heirloom corn, straight from Mexico,” the brewery explains. A 5.2% ABV Vienna lager, it’s described as “Crisp, clean, and biscuity with a healthy finish of toasted tortilla and lime zest from heirloom corn and Motueka hops.”

Pryes Brewing Co.   

• Forêt De Cerise – Top Flight selection.

Schell’s Brewery

• Cave-Aged Barrel-Aged – Top Flight selection.

Urban Growler Brewing Company

• Bock Bock – A malt-forward German-style lager with toasty flavors. 6.6% ABV, 26 IBU.

Waconia Brewing Company

• Cranberry Kolsch and Pecan Porter – Tapped on Wednesday.

Wild Mind Ales   

• Snooze – A sweet pastry stout with dark malts, marshmallows, sweet potatoes, and lactose. 7.6% ABV.

Have a new beer we should know about? Send the details to newbeer@beerdabbler.com for inclusion in Freshies.