Stash Killer!: October 2022

Sunday, 9 October 2022

BrewDog Jet Black Heart

Origin: UK | Date: 2017 | ABV: 4.7% | On The Beer Nut: April 2016

In 2017 I was lucky enough to win a prize in BrewDog's short-lived Beer Geek Awards. It included a box of beers which had some good stuff in it, but otherwise seemed to be assembled hastily from whatever was to hand in the office. Among them was today's beer, Jet Black Heart. BrewDog wasn't doing much in cans yet and this one is marked "Nitro Test D" on the bottom, becoming the first canned beer to go into the stash.

The nitro testing went well because, following the instruction to invert the can and pour hard, I got a lasting whipped-cream head on the stout. There's a little bit of staleness or oxidation in the aroma which isn't ideal for a sweet milk stout. The flavour is spot on, though: the chocolate and vanilla tasting as fresh as the day it was canned. There's a little hop bittering in the finish as well. I don't remember exactly how Jet Black Heart is supposed to taste but I'd be surprised if this isn't it.

I have a feeling that I'll get less value out of this blog as it makes the inevitable switch to canned beers. The evidence so far is that canning does too good a job of preserving a beer exactly as it was. Maybe I just need to leave them longer. We'll see.

What is this?

A floor was installed in my attic in 2008. I've used it to store beer ever since. It's particularly handy in winter when everything inside is kept at perfect drinking temperature. And right from the early days I began hoarding odd bottles, ones I'd already reviewed on my main blog and I thought it might be fun to leave them aside to see how they age, or to drink on a special occasion. The problem is, in seven years, the special occasion never arises. I'm the luckiest fucker alive: every day is a cause for jubilation, and it never seems to occur that I should probably mark this with a celebratory vintage beer.

But no more. The stash is getting out of hand, I'm no closer to actually drinking any of it, and I've begun to worry about fires, earthquakes, sudden death, or any number of other inconveniences that might prevent me from getting to those bottles. So today begins the project to do just that. I reckon a blog is the way to encourage me to keep it going. It won't be as regular as The Beer Nut, it won't cover beers I haven't already written about there, and it's not as open-ended: there is only a finite amount of liquid up there, after all.
-- November 2015