Deschutes Brewing Co. Black Butte XXI
As much as I am a bit of a partisan for Hair Of The Dog, in many ways Deschutes Brewing Company symbolizes northwest beer for me. I’ve been lucky enough to travel out to Portland on two occasions and taste a handful of their beers, and have always been impressed by how solid their lineup was, and how top-shelf some of their offerings could be. But more than that, there is something intangible that I can’t put my finger on, and that makes me think of Portland and Oregon whenever I think of Deschutes.
This beer in particular was one that was high on my list of beers to look for during our recent trip out west. Deschutes released Black Butter XXI this past June, and as with all of their Reserve Series beers (a series that also includes The Abyss, The Dissident, and Mirror Mirror) it garnered a lot of attention after its release. And with good reason. Deschutes had taken their solid Black Butte Porter and kicked it up many, many notches.
The Black Butte Porter has been a feature in Deschutes regular lineup since their founding in 1988. They first released a pumped up version of it as part of their Reserve Series in 2008, naming it Black Butte XX in recognition of the brewery’s 20th anniversary. This year’s version nearly doubles the ABV of the Black Butte Porter, rolling in at 11%. The beer’s 55 IBUs aren’t shy, despite the additions of Dominican Republic cocoa nibs from Theo’s Chocolate, dry-hopping with 100 pounds of Ethiopian coffee locally roasted by Bellatazza’s Coffee, and aging 20% of it in Stranahan’s whiskey barrels.
In this case, the question is really: how do all of these ingredients play out in the finished beer? Will it be a train wreck of competing flavors, or a complex, layered beauty?
Black Butte XXI pours medium weight, dark black in color with chocolaty amber highlights and a thin tan head. Enticing notes of caramel, chocolate, coffee, roasted grains, and vanilla rise from the glass. With time and as the beer warms the caramel and chocolate become a bit more prominent, the roasted grains and coffee a bit more subdued. The palate has flavors of cocoa, raisin, vanilla, a touch of whiskey, espresso, and a pervading hop bitterness. The flavors come in waves, with the sweeter flavors, vanilla, cocoa, and whiskey, hitting the palate first, then giving way to the coffee, followed by the hops. The beer has a nice, velvety mouthfeel. The finish is very warming, opening up with hop bitterness that gives way to roasted coffee, anise, and caramel.
Did this beer live up to my expectations? Definitely. While I found the hop presence to be a bit clashing with the other flavors, this aspect lessened as the beer warmed. In fact, it really evolved in the glass, with the barrel aspect becoming slowly more prominent, but never dominating the flavors. The porter flavors of roasted coffee and grains, never entirely went away. I liked the more subtle blending of the flavors from the barrel-aging.
That being said, I shudder to think of how incredible a 100% barrel-aged version would taste. Wow.
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