Come on out and try OLD HABIT on draft Thursday evening at The Chapter House in Collegetown. It will be the only chance you’ll get to try this beer on draft(we only filled 3 kegs), and the IBC posse will be in the house!   If you like big, strong, complex and oaky beers…..
the Chief
The first quartet of Excelsior! beers is complete (for now)! Seeing all 4 of them together is really nice, a lot of work went into them (thanks so much to everyone at IBC for making this happen, but especially to Amanda who gets virtually no credit for all of the BS that she deals with for us) and it sometimes seemed like they’d never be done- but having all 4 together is really gratifying. They are nothing like each other, or like anything else we’ve done before but they make for a nice little family and we’re really proud of them.
So what are Kaffinator and Old Habit like?
Kaffinator pours really dark with a nice head of large bubbles. This fades pretty quickly (sort of expected due to the heavy oil content of the gimme! coffee) and leaves a deep, inviting looking beer. The aroma is of fresh, freshly ground coffee and the really good stuff at that. It has just enough sweetness to counterbalance the somewhat bitter acidity of the ridiculous amount of coffee in it, and that sweetness is perceived as a chocolately breadiness. If this sounds good, it’s because it is. I held back on the hop bitterness in this one, and I’m glad that I did because it finishes with a real coffee bite that’s not harsh at all (of course, i usually drink 3 or 4 double espressos every morning so take my opinion with a grain of salt). If you really like coffee, and really like beer, and really like supporting Ithaca-based businesses- the odds are pretty good that you will really like Kaffinator!
Old Habit is something altogether different. You may have read earlier in this space about our trials and tribulations with using malted Rye in the brewhouse, turns out it was worth all of the blood, sweat and swears. The color is the first outstanding thing you will notice. if you can pour it into a narrow enough glass, and hold it up to just the right amount of light you will see that it is a brownish purple almost magenta type hue, a color that I wish I could call deliberate, but I almost didn’t know that it existed in the world of beer. Anyhow, the crystal and chocolate rye malts combined in the most serendipitous way and then that color was enhanced by 6 weeks of aging in George Dickel whisky(sic) barrels. It’s a marvelous color, and the beer has serious, viscous “legs” when you swirl it around the glass. The solid tan head releases the first hints of what is to come with whiffs of vanilla, black cherry and warm booze. The cherry fruitiness continues in the flavor, and then segues into dryish oak and spicy, spicy alcohol. the mouthfeel is fairly thick for a beer that finishes pretty dry, and there’s none of the cloying sweetness that is sometimes associated with beers of this ilk. What are you waiting for?
Come out and try these beers with us tomorrow night at Barcade in Brooklyn (www.barcadebrooklyn.com)!
To my loyal readership! Has it really been 6 weeks since I last wrote? Needless to say, much has happened at IBC since april 26th. We lost a key man and have had to scramble to fill in the void(good luck Jeff C., we miss you a lot). We got a new boiler (HOT water on demand rocks!) and had to suffer the consequences of not brewing for over a week(you guessed it, no beer) we set a record for brews in a week (10 batches, or 250 bbls) and we finally bottled, conditioned, labeled and released Kaffinator and Old Habit.
Anyway, I’m back in the saddle- so prepare yourself for a barrage over the next few weeks as we’ve got events coming out of the wazoo. Firstly tomorrow night at Barcade(www.barcadebrooklyn.com), Thursday June 7th, we are unveiling Kaffinator and Old Habit for the very first time. Come on out and meet the crew, and try a couple of really unique and wonderful beers along with stalwarts Cascazilla, Apricot Wheat and a cask-conditioned firkin of Nut Brown from the Barcade beer engine. See if you can set the high-score on such vintage video games as Dig Dug and Outrun. See the event Poster at http://www.barcadebrooklyn.com/Ithaca_Night_Poster07.jpg.
If you mention the blog, your first beer’s on me!
The Chief
