Rochefort 10

Origin: Belgium | Date: 2011 | ABV: 11.3% | On The Beer Nut: October 2007

Just a quick check-in at the Rochefort farm. This vintage of Rochefort 10 featured in an early Stash Killer! post back in 2016. I was charmed by it at the time; let's see how another four years has treated it.

Maybe it's my failing acumen, but the aroma seems less lively than I remember: still with the concentrated dried dark fruit -- raisin and fig -- but I needed a full lungful to get a proper impression. The fizz is still busy and the body full. The flavour has turned a little bitter: I get a whack of herbal liquorice and a pinch of ginger spicing, almost like some cod-Victorian medicinal tonic. The cough-syrup thickness helps that effect. I noticed chocolate and cake in the five-year version and that's gone from the nine; this is more sour than sweet. There's nothing too extreme, though, and smoothness is still the watchword. There's no trace of any bacteria or wild yeast activity, no oxidation, autolysis or any of the other bad things that happen when beer is aged. It still tastes proper.

Rochefort 10 is a real performer when it comes to cellaring. If my haphazard treatment is yielding results this good, anyone can do it. I don't know that the 10 is getting better, but it's different from before, and still very enjoyable. Next time out I should have a fresh one to hand for comparison.

Bigfoot

Origin: USA | Dates: 2010 & 2020 | ABV: 9.6% | On The Beer Nut: September 2007

It's a while since Sierra Nevada Bigfoot has featured here. Back then, I drank three vintages four years apart and concluded that they weren't that different, from year one back to year eight. With another four years on the clock it seems reasonable to try again, this time picking two bottles that are ten years separated.

They look fairly similar: a rich and clear shade of red, though the older one fizzed more and piled up head as it poured, suggesting that fermentation has been active all this time. But I started with the fresh one, to set a baseline. That heavy, sweet, red liquorice rope and cherry effect that is young Bigfoot hasn't been changed this year. There's a dry edge to it, and the bitterness is toned down more than I remember. Normally I wouldn't recommend drinking fresh Bigfoot, but this is really quite nice.

How does it compare with a ten-year-old bottle? The aroma is completely different, for a start. 2020 has virtually none but 2010 shows a rich warm port-like character that I forgot is an essential part of Bigfoot. 2010's flavour has definitely dried out, and there's a strong kick of stewed tea about it. That's not unpleasant, however, and it it makes it more approachable and less boozy. There's a cough-syrup element that's unsubtle but quite enjoyable, and that doesn't seem to feature in the new one.

I think they've changed the Bigfoot recipe. Time was, the fresh one was verging on undrinkable for year one -- too heavy on the bitterness; now it's actually quite pleasant and mellow. Ten years down the line, that intensity has calmed down but remains in the slightly acrid dryness. Of this pair I think I enjoyed the 2020 more, which was not the plan. I guess it's time to reset the experiment and see where Bigfoot is at come 2030.

Lacada Utopian Stout

Origin: Ireland | Date: 2016 | ABV: 8% | On The Beer Nut: April 2016

"Limited Edition" says the label. It's something of a habit among breweries to take a recipe intended as a one-off and put it into regular production. Such has happened with this imperial stout from Lacada, now available in a full half-litre. But today I'm going back to its roots as no. 1 in the Lacada Salamander Series of experimental beers. "Best before 15/02/2017", we are advised.

It crackles into the glass thinly and I feared for the beer's smoothness, wondering if some wild fermentation had attenuated it down to thin vinegar. Thankfully not: it's still satisfyingly chewy. The various fruit, candy and cocoa flavours have melded together into a single floral-spicy taste: part cola, part Kola Kube, with a backing of tar and tobacco. A tang of hop bitterness stops the dark malt from running away with it completely. Best of all, there are none of the signs of wonky ageing: no oxidation or autolysis, all is mellow and easy-going.

I'm not sure if this one warrants further ageing. The off-flavours mentioned above could be primed to develop at any moment, and there's enough of a difference between this and how it originally tasted for me to feel I got my money's worth out of the cellaring. If you have one, get it open now, say I.

Five Points Brick Field Brown

Origin: UK | Date: 2017 | ABV: 5.4% | On The Beer Nut: March 2018

Today's beer never actually made it into the stash. It was acquired quite recently as part of a cellar clear-out at UnderDog and I suspect it's a leftover from the Five Points launch event they hosted in February 2018. It was bottled in November of the previous year and has a best-before of just over seven months ago. I reckon that's about long enough to be considered vintage.

In my original review I complained about over-carbonation. It's always a risk with an unfiltered and unpasteurised beer like this, that it will get worse with age as the yeast keeps on chomping through the sugars. But it poured evenly and easily, forming a slim off-white head over the deep chocolate-brown body.

It's still very dry, showing a wheaty breakfast-cereal crunch with the vanilla and cocoa powder of mid-range milk chocolate. The texture is pleasingly soft, which was definitely not my experience last time out, and there's a pleasant cherry or strawberry jam note which wasn't there before.

I think Brick Field may be a good one for ageing, longer than this bottle got, and my bottle certainly hasn't got worse since it was fresh. The beer is robust enough to add complexities as time goes on, and so long as it doesn't dry out totally, there could be something fun yet to emerge. Don't touch that bottle-opener!

O'Hara's Barrel Aged Barley Wine

Origin: Ireland | Date: 2014 | ABV: 9.6% | On The Beer Nut: September 2013

In a change to the usual procedure, this post is about a beer from someone else's stash. I was given this bottle by Brendan yesterday in payment for some enjoyable consultancy work. Strictly speaking I haven't reviewed it before: the link above is to the original non-barrel version at 7.1% ABV, before it got 90 days in an Irish whiskey cask. I think I did taste this edition at some point, however, and wasn't terribly impressed.

If that's the case then time has been good to it. There's a genuinely vinous richness, packed with plump juicy raisins and sweet plum. I got a layer of velvety chocolate too, more suited to a porter than a barley wine but inarguably delicious. The whiskey character, if there ever was one, has faded to almost nothing, just a slight note of oaky vanilla. A very mild beefy autolytic twang is the only sign of wear and tear, but it's so slight as to be all but imperceptible.

This isn't terribly complex, and I was expecting more going on, given the ageing, the strength and the extended cellaring, but I'm very happy with how it turned out. It's smooth, mellow and very tasty. Well worth a pop if you have one stashed.

O'Hara's Imperial Stout

Origin: Ireland | Date: 2016 | ABV: 10% | On The Beer Nut: March 2016

A new era begins on Stash Killer! today. The beers that had been languishing in the attic to no particular purpose have mostly been consumed and reviewed. There are duplicates of some which I'll come back to in a few more years, and there are some new additions to the stash which I'm leaving to mature a while to see if anything interesting happens to them. But my intention now is to use this blog to try the beers I thought needed a bit of maturation when first tasted.

This one is a direct sequel to last month's post. That was the stout Carlow Brewing made to mark their 10th anniversary brewing in 2008. O'Hara's Imperial Stout came out in 2016, commemorating 20 years as a company. I thought at the time it would benefit from waiting until the brewing anniversary rolled around, and so here we are.

The metallic kick I picked up two years ago has certainly softened, leaving just a gentle minerality. In the centre there's a mix of blackcurrant and dark chocolate, and then a very slight savoury autolytic twang on the end. It hasn't quite become as complex as I hoped, but is a lot better than when it was fresh, so mission accomplished.

And with that, I'm putting this blog on indefinite hiatus, until the next time I fancy something from the stash.

O'Hara's Celebration Stout

Origin: Ireland | Date: 2008 | ABV: 6% | On The Beer Nut: March 2008

Back in 2008, a new-release Irish beer was a real special occasion, enough to warrant a blog post saved for the national holiday. Ten years ago to the day I reviewed the brand new O'Hara's Celebration, the beer brewed for the brewery's 10th anniversary that would later evolve into accessible classic Leann Folláin. Of course these days new Irish beers arrive at a rate of several a week. 2008 seems a very long time ago where our nation's beer scene is concerned. I wonder how the beer is faring a decade later.

There's a satisfying snap when the swingtop is popped, though little signs of carbonation on pouring, a thin off-white head eventually forming. The folly of ageing beer in swingtop bottles is apparent from the aroma: a definite sherry whiff from the creeping oxygen. The flavour carries that too, and a slight musty staleness. But there's a solid layer of chocolate beside that, pleasingly dark and bitter, as well as a mild umami note. The texture is surprisingly light, much more so than heavy old Leann Folláin when it's fresh, and the beer is simpler, less complex, than I expected.

I'm a little disappointed that this hasn't transformed into a masterpiece the way the Porterhouse one did. It's fine, but does not taste like a stout with ten years on it. I blame the ABV: I guess you need to go higher to get the real benefit.