The Bruery
Placentia, CA
Available: CA, WA, OR, AZ, NV, CO, WI, IL, IN, OH, PA, MA, NY, NJ, MD, DC, VA, NC, SC, GA, FL
This is the second in The Bruery’s 12-year series of winter seasonal beers based on the “Twelve Days of Christmas” song. For this year’s offering, they were inspired by the “turtle” candy, adding cocoa nibs, toasted pecans and caramelized sugars to a base of Belgian strong dark beer.
ABV: 12
ABW: 9.55
Color: 38
Bitterness: 30
Original gravity: 1096
The label informs me that this beer can be aged for up to 10 years, but my bottle couldn’t wait to show off. The aromatics jumped out of the bottle, even before pouring. Deep brown in color, with a tan, frothy head. Some spice (nutmeg?), raisin and molasses in the aroma (Boston brown bread), along with malty cocoa. Very inspiring. Medium-bodied and velvety. The cocoa nibs fairly slap me in the face with their unmistakable bitter flavor and lingering finish. The taste has lots of grainy dark malts and burnt sugar. This monster is one-of-a-kind. Grab one and forget about it until next Christmas or far beyond, as the flavors have yet to blend and there are not enough residuals for this to dry out much more.
Cocoa heaven. The pour even sounds like cocoa! Rich dense cocoa head. Deep cocoa color. Intoxicating cocoa aroma. Cocoa flavor is over-the-top wonderful. The best cocoa’d beer I’ve ever had. Warming 12 percent alcohol is a bonus, though kick isn’t essential. Mild but effective honey pecan character with yeasty fruit. Now I’m going nuts. Belgian-style? Not at all. This is truly an American concoction worth four times what you paid for it. Raving nuts gone cocoa. Loving every drop. Forget food—this is food.
K. Florian Klemp is an award-winning homebrewer and general hobbyist who thinks there is no more sublime marriage than that of art and science.
Author of the New Complete Joy of Homebrewing, founder of the Great American Beer Festival and a Beer Examiner at www.examiner.com, Papazian is a leading voice in beer and brewing.
