American Craft Beer The Best Craft Beer, Breweries, Bars, Brewpubs, Beer Stores, And Restaurants Serving Serious Beer.
(Courtesy Firestone Walker Brewing)
One of craft’s most anticipated barrel-aged beers is back with the release of Firestone Walker XXVIII Anniversary Ale, an annual release celebrating the Paso Robles, California-based craft brewery’s founding way back in 1996.
“Each Anniversary Ale represents a new challenge based on an unwavering idea—to create a super blend whose sum is greater than its parts,” said Brewmaster Matt Brynildson. “This is now our 19th annual release in the series, and once again I believe that our brewers and winemakers have outdone themselves.”
Like no other beer in craft, Firestone Walker’s annual Anniversary Ale is an ode to the art of blending.
Every late summer, a group of Paso Robles winemakers joins the brewers for the annual rite of blending the next Anniversary Ale. They break into small groups at the brewery; create their favorite blend from a variety of provided components; and then blind taste all of the blends before voting on a winner.
For XXVIII, the winning blend included no less than seven components. The finished beer features a pronounced barleywine-style influence from components such as Bravo, Stickee Monkee and Helldorado.
“We challenged ourselves not to take the easy route with a stout-dominant beer,” Brynildson says. “Stout remains a critical component, but we also wanted to create a beer with a lot of finesse, so we put several barleywines on the table to mix things up.”
(Courtesy Firestone Walker)
XXVIII: The Final Blend
DDBA – Imperial Special Bitter Aged in Bourbon Barrels (9%) –
Stickee Monkee – Central Coast Quad aged in Bourbon Barrels (37%)
Bravo – Imperial Brown Ale aged in Bourbon Barrels (28%)
Helldorado – Blonde Barleywine Aged in Bourbon Barrels (4%)
Velvet Merkin – Milk Stout aged in Bourbon Barrels (4%)
Weldwerks Stout Blend – Imperial Stout aged in Bourbon Barrels (7%)
PaRyebola – Imperial Stout aged in Straight Rye Whiskey Barrels (11%)
The winning blend was created by winemaker Molly Lonborg of Alta Colina Winery and Little Soul Wines, and winemakers Kyle Jury and CC Aguirre of Booker Wines.
“It was tricky to get all of these beers to balance out and join together, and their blend was just head and shoulders above the rest when we tasted through them,” Brynildson added.
