Day 267 Drink: The Bruery Black Tuesday

One of the frustrations of organizing an event like the Denver Rare Beer Tasting is realizing that there is no chance that you will get to enjoy all of the great beers that are being poured. All you can hope for is a taste of a fraction of the beers on hand.

This year we had 26 hard to find brews from some of the most notable American craft brewers. This was just our second year, but we wanted to make sure the event was still different from the first DRBT. We brought back some of the fan favorite breweries from last year, but we also made sure at least half of those pouring beer had not been at the first event. There is enough variety in America's small breweries to give exposure to new brewers each year.

When the doors opened to the Denver Rare Beer Tasting II the 500 beer fans that had been in line outside the Wynkoop Brewery in Denver plowed into the upstairs pool hall and a traffic jam soon formed in one corner of the big room. It is hard to figure out why this happened, since there was great beer spread around the entire space, but the result was that these brewers were the first to run out of beer. In a couple of cases it happened fairly quickly, a little over an hour into the event. This meant that one of the beers on my personal list as a "must try" -- The Bruery Mélange #3 -- was gone before I had the chance.

I did find a consolation prize. The Bruery's spot on the floor of the Great American Beer Festival was in a row right behind the Pints for Prostates booth. I managed to make a couple of trips back and was rewarded with some Black Tuesday. It was one of the best beers I had during the entire trip to Denver.

The Bruery Black Tuesday is a 19.5 percent alcohol by volume imperial stout that is aged in an ex-Bourbon barrel for one year. The result is a black beer with a mocha colored head that has viscosity. The beer is rich, thick and chewy. Plenty of vanilla and toffee in the nose. These notes carry over in the flavor profile, joined by hints of wood, roasted grains and black cherry in the finish.