I was at Churchkey recently for a work event and decided to dip into the rarer Reserve menu for a fancy drink (don't worry, on my own tab.) Aside from their normal (vast) array of beers on draft, they also have an extensive bottle list including some rare and vintage beers. Today's is one such beer; I was looking for an aged stout to kick off the night right and it was a choice between this and Founders Kentucky Breakfast stout, 2017 edition. I opted for this since I'd never had it nor anything by the brewery.
This beer is called "Odyssey" (or "Odyssey 001", as listed on the menu) and is a respectable 12.40% ABV imperial stout made by Siren Craft Brew in Berkshire, England. It's aged in three kinds of barrels - Banyuls (a French fortified dessert wine), brandy, and bourbon. I've had all three of these spirits before, and all can be sweet - particularly Banyuls. So maybe this will be sweet?
It's actually not sweet. It's very, very soft. I'm detecting some chocolate flavors straightaway, and as the beer develops, I can taste some undercurrents of espresso bean and deep, rounded wood flavors - only possible with years of aging. Very milky mouthfeel, almost like it's on nitro. Very neat. It's surprisingly medium-bodied, has a super clean finish, and lacks any oiliness whatsoever. It's almost too soft for me, and at $30 a glass, I'd like to see the flavors a bit more lively for something this expensive. I wonder what this costs new; would be neat to grab a few bottles maybe in the $10 range and then sit them down for a few years, given what I know now about how it ages!
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