Let’s just get this out of the way up top, this is vastly better than this years @revbrewchicago regular old ryeway which was a touch disappointing in light of last years stellar performance. There’s a Thanos balance to the Deep Wood program, it’s always solid but spikes of greatness provide the inertia to bring us back to center. Balance in all things. Mineshaft was good but the [regular old] SJ last year with the 30%vsoj back blended In completely set the curve. This year’s ryeway was nice but then you have this insane Big Boss shattering the Raiden class average. It’s darkkk with tons of molasses and maple, very saturated in those sticky staves with pecan and almond skin to balance the sweetness. There’s a kinda dusty cracked walnut providing light bitterness as an offset. Pie filling isn’t what this beer is all about and at its malty core is a throbbing interior of prune and fig. I know nothing about the spirit profile in the French brandy other than it’s made with disgusting grapes and straight up gilded age capitalist/retirement home juice. Apparently it has some properties to propel Urkel to Stefan when it enters that chamber. It’s hard to believe that the spicy wafty swallow of regular ryeway shares the same base beer lineage as this exists as a vast improvement. The body is surprisingly restrained in light of the Marie Callendar’s lineup iterated above. The nose bursts with cassia bark and almost reminds me of a Sazerac in a way, the New Orleans cocktail, not the laughably overpriced BTAC rye. Carb is nice but unsurprisingly is lovingly sheeted away by the massive legs like some fusel zambonie. The swallow could be a touch longer but increased viscosity would take away from how focused the entire beer is and we don’t need Marty ripping open bags of DME and going full Floridian on us. In sum this is a fantastic experience that bends genre conventions from the parade of British confectionary toffee caramel parade we see in the core barleybang experience. I wish I had more because this is absolutely well done and my little pecayunes won’t detract from this decadent gem.

Also buy tickets to the 2/1/19 malt couture show live at Schubas!

http://www.lh-st.com/Shows/02-01-2019+Malt+Couture+Live