Avery Uncle Jacob’s Stout
“Happy Birthday to you… Happy Birthday to you…..” I won’t bore you with my singing. I am on a mission to drink up all of the brews I have collected in my little fridges before I buy any more beer. In my quest I pulled out an Uncle Jacob’s Stout tonight and poured it into a frosted glass as I pretended to help prep dinner.
I bought it when Wine World was closing and that’s been a while. This is part of Avery’s Annual Barrel Series. It’s aged in bourbon barrels like Tweak and Rumpkin. As I was pouring I notice this one was bottled on February 6th, 2018. That’s why I’m singing Happy Birthday. I’m drinking this beautiful stout on it’s 4th birthday. Avery makes some really nice bourbon barrel stouts that age very well. This is one of them.
As I said I was pretending to help prep dinner because but if you drink a 15.9% brew like this you might want to hold off handling hot dishes.
You can’t buy this beer in Georgia because ABC has a cap of 14% on beer. I have to travel to South Carolina to find their high gravity brews. They have them on the shelf at Green’s in Columbia. I paid $13.49 (less the closing sale discount) way back when. $15 is about what you expect to pay for a bottle of Uncle Jacob’s and Tweak.
I had my first Tweak about 4 years ago. While on a family vacation in Colorado we drove up to Boulder and took the Avery brewery tour and spent some time in their tasting room. All great brews. I told the tour guide I was not a big fan of sours and he immediately said “I can fix that.” He came back to the table with a tasting paddle with a slew of sours that were really good. On the way out I bought a bottle of Tweak and a brew called New World Porter. Brought them home and immediately wished I had bought more especially after they discontinued New World and you can’t buy Tweak in Georgia.
According the label it says “Jacob Spears, our 6th Great Grand Uncle, is credited as the first distiller to label his whiskey “Bourbon.” He built his distillery in Bourbon County Kentucky in 1790 – 203 years before we began brewing. While obviously a bit too late to produce Uncle Jacob’s wash, we’ve instead created something far more complex. In his honor, we present this robust, silky smooth, full-bodied and altogether extremely American rendition of an Imperial Stout aged for 6 months in the very finest Bourbon barrels. This explains a lot about our penchant for big brews! It’s in our blood!”
Looking at their website they have four brews that make up their Annual Barrel Series. I’ve had Tweak (one of my favorites), Rumpkin (one of my favorite pumpkin brews-it’s a whopping 16.9%) and Plank’d which comes in at 16.2% but we can’t eat coconut in this house so I’ll have to skip. Their website says Tweak is 14.7% but the bottle on my desk says 17.5%. They might have lowered the octane since I bought it last.
Being 4 years old this brew has held up beautifully. Didn’t create a head except for a wisp of light brown foam around the edges. A lot of barrel aged brews pour out flat but that doesn’t make them bad. Dark as can be. No light can pass through this beer.
Dark, roasty and smooth as silk. It does have a hint of hoppy bitterness on the edge and on the finish. After second sip and as it started to warm that little hoppy edge died down. Despite being 17.5% you can’t really taste the alcohol… feel it yes, taste it no. The bottle says the ingredients are “Rocky Mountain Water, Malted Barley, Flaked Oats, Hops and Yeast.”
This was a nice little birthday party.
I realized I have 4 more bottles of Uncle Jacob’s hiding in the little fridge behind the Tweak. Haven’t check the dates on them but if Uncle Jacob’s is this good at 4 I don’t have to be in a rush to drink them.
