Don't Worry About That Fireplace
Breakside Brewery in Milwaukie, Oregon, United States 🇺🇸
Stout - Imperial Regular|
Score
7.49
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Our final barrel-aged stout for 2024 offers a classic Kentucky hug with nods to the apple orchards of Oregon and the small-family farms of Uganda. Don’t Worry About That Fireplace plays in the realm of refined pastry stout: we combined big-bodied stout, porter, and barleywine aged in a mix of brandy and whiskey casks with the goal of marrying the fudgy notes of the porter, the dark fruit from the stout, and a punch of caramel from the barleywine. The initial blend definitely pushed us towards a luscious dessert beer.
We count ourselves incredibly lucky to call Caittin Bartlemay and her team at Clear Creek Distillery friends.
They make world-class spirits and liqueurs, chief among them is their apple brandy. The aromas from the barrels and from the beer that we age in them transports us straight to the height of fruit season in the Northwest and, more exotically, to the farmhouses of northern France where world-class apple brandy was born.
A long-aged milk stout in these barrels formed the centerpiece of this blend, and we built the rest around it
The spirit notes from those barrels played beautifully with some higher age-statement whiskies, but to really tie the room together we had to bring in something to up the body. We thought it would be extra luxe and decadent if we could introduce a cake-like note, either from malt or some other ingredient to ground the spiritu-ousness a bit. Enter some ground vanilla from Uganda that rounded the beer out with a beautiful custard note and a silky mouthfeel. The finished beer balances all of these elements — notes of fruit, spirit, vanilla, and chocolate — all in each sip.
We count ourselves incredibly lucky to call Caittin Bartlemay and her team at Clear Creek Distillery friends.
They make world-class spirits and liqueurs, chief among them is their apple brandy. The aromas from the barrels and from the beer that we age in them transports us straight to the height of fruit season in the Northwest and, more exotically, to the farmhouses of northern France where world-class apple brandy was born.
A long-aged milk stout in these barrels formed the centerpiece of this blend, and we built the rest around it
The spirit notes from those barrels played beautifully with some higher age-statement whiskies, but to really tie the room together we had to bring in something to up the body. We thought it would be extra luxe and decadent if we could introduce a cake-like note, either from malt or some other ingredient to ground the spiritu-ousness a bit. Enter some ground vanilla from Uganda that rounded the beer out with a beautiful custard note and a silky mouthfeel. The finished beer balances all of these elements — notes of fruit, spirit, vanilla, and chocolate — all in each sip.
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7.8/10
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Appearance 8
Aroma 8
Flavor 7.5
Texture 8
Overall 7.5
22 oz. bottle, pours jet black with a small beige head. Aroma has tons of brandy barrels, followed by bourbon barrels, lactose, and vanilla. Flavour is very rich, with lots of lactose, bready and bourbon, followed by plenty of vanilla beans. The lactose I could do with out, as it adds a weird sweetness to it. Good barrel character and of course good base beer. Very good as usual.
Tried
from Bottle
at
Breakside Brewery - NW Slabtown
on 13 Apr 2025
at 05:00
8.6/10
—
Appearance 8
Aroma 8.5
Flavor 9
Texture 8
Overall 9
Bottle. Pours a pitch black hue, a tiny beige head that goes down. A huge nose, plum, whiskey, vanilla. Heavy sweet bourbon, vanilla, light heat, layers of brandy. Damn, this is so good. Wood, sweet throughout but not cloying. Lovely.
Tried
on 15 Mar 2025
at 05:56
8.5/10
—
Appearance 8
Aroma 9
Flavor 9
Texture 8
Overall 8
bomber bottle. Pours a dense black with a small brown head that quickly recedes into a fine ring around the glass. The aroma is strong with dark fruits, vanilla, anise and whiskey. The taste is complex with milk chocolate, dark chocolate, figs, vanilla and whiskey. There is a lot of lactose in this. The palate is heavy and oily with soft carbonation. Finishes long and sweet with lingering cocoa. Overall: Decent, but did you you really need to put this 13.5abv elixir in a 650ml bottle? Notes: Bottle says this is a milk-stout.
Tried
from Bottle
on 05 Jan 2025
at 18:17