For beek geeks, Black Friday is synonymous with imperial stouts and other big beer releases. Sure, you could pay $45 for half a liter of barrel aged beer from a large multinational corporation–hey, we’ve all been there!–but we’d prefer you shop small and shop local. Or, buy both.
DC Brau’s Wake Up in the Future was at one point modeled on Goose Island’s Bourbon County Brand Stout. DC’s first craft brewery held an internal tasting of imperial stouts a few years back and when BCBS was the winner, the brewery created something similar. Think big notes of vanilla, marshmallow, pipe tobacco, and hints of leather. This year’s release retains the 15% alcohol by volume of previous versions and is aged in barrels from both Old Elk and Rabbit Hole distilleries. In a twist, Brau is moving from cans to bottles, and making more of it available on draft. First up, the restaurants of Thompson Hospitality, which include Hen Quarter, Milk & honey, and matchbox. We would absolutely pair chicken and waffles with this beer. We suggest you head to the brewery first, however, because there’s a limited amount of five-year verticals of Wake Up in the Future available for $29.99 per five-pack on Black Friday. Watch Brau’s social media for additional news on Wake Up in the Future closer to their Crafty Draftsters holiday market on December 16.
Black Friday isn’t just for stouts, though. The area’s foremost purveyor of barleywine-style ales is Jailbreak Brewing Co. in Laurel, Maryland, and they’re releasing two barrel-aged beauties: a double-barreled version and another aged in apple brandy barrels. Want to hang out? They’ll have 5 barleywines on tap, along with bottle pours and sales of the excellent 2022 versions. The brewer, Rob Fink, was kind enough to send us notes on the 2023 releases.
“Barleywine is Beer Reserve: Apple Brandy is composed of a single English-style Barleywine thread aged in Copper & Kings Apple Brandy barrels for 3 years. Three barrels were chosen for this Reserve release (1- newly charred oak/apple brandy, 2 – Heaven Hill bourbon/apple brandy, 3 – Willett Bourbon/apple brandy), the blend of which exhibits a beguiling panoply of flavor ranging from caramel apple to PX sherry to dark maple syrup.
Barleywine is Beer Reserve: Double Barrel Bourbon began as two separate English-style Barleywine threads, one aged in Wilderness Trail Bourbon barrels (24% rye), and one aged in 13 year 1792 Bourbon barrels (18% rye). Once a blend of these two threads was decided upon, it was then de-barreled and subsequently racked to 8 year Willett Wheated Bourbon barrels (20% wheat), for an average of 3 years of total barrel residency. Flavors ranging from toasted marshmallow and vanilla frosting to nougat enrobed in caramel envelope the palate.”
Barleywine is Beer Reserve: Apple Brandy – 13.6% ABV, waxed 500ml bottle, $22; and Barleywine is Beer Reserve: Double Barrel Bourbon – 13.2% ABV, waxed 500mL bottle, $24. All Jailbreak barleywines are, per Fink, “100% floor-malted Maris Otter, no sugar, and long boils,” as it should be.
Keeping it Maryland, Crooked Crab’s underrated barrel program has three heavy hitters ready to go.
- Barrel Aged Heatmiser – Perfect for cold-weather sippin’! This Apple Brandy and Bourbon Barrel-Aged Imperial Winter Warmer features spices.
- Single Barrel Select Eagle Rare Barrel Aged Clash of Kings – The return of The King! This Bourbon Barrel-Aged Imperial Stout features Coconut, Thai Banana, Vanilla, and Cacao.
- Single Barrel Select 18-Year Knob Creek Bourbon Barrel Aged Eternal Deathslayer – Try saying that 10 times fast. A classic Bourbon Barrel-Aged Imperial Stout.
Don’t want to break the beer bank on high gravity barrel-aged ales? Brew Republic has you covered. The Woodbridge, Virginia brewery is opening at 9am on Black Friday with $1 beers. Get there at 10am and they’ll be $2 each, and $3 at 11am. You get the idea. Brew Republic is near a lot of shopping, so you can either decompress after being in line at Best Buy at 4am or have a beer before impulse buying a countertop pebble ice machine.
“We usually release Elliptical Orbit (Dark Sour) on Black Friday… this year’s iteration with Cascara and Geisha Coffee is bottled, but won’t be ready for a couple more weeks!” notes Columbia’s Sapwood Cellars. But worry not, they’ve got two stouts releasing on bottles and draft on Friday.
“BSCV 2023 500 mL $24 (Limit 2) – 12.2% ABV. Like last year we blended three barrels of Imperial Stout and one barleywine (High Value Treat) then infused them with Coconut (Toasted, Candied, and Raw) and Vanilla Beans (Guatemala. and Tonga).
ABSW 2023 500 mL $24 (Limit 3) – 11.9% ABV. This second batch started as our oat-forward “Flaked” base from 2022 and spent 11 months in barrels before going onto 1 lb/gal of house-toasted walnuts!”
Sick of hearing about stouts? Other Half and Equilibrium have you covered with two IPAs, available at the Ivy City brewery in DC.
“Lab Nightmare Triple IPA (10.0%)
A new variant of the Lab Daydream series with our friends at Equilibrium. Lab Nightmare is hopped with Citra, Motueka, Nectaron and Galaxy.
Space Lab: Geocentric Orbit Imperial IPA (8.0%)
A new Space Lab variant just in time for our traditional pre-Thanksgiving drop with our friends at Equilibrium. Brilliantly hopped with Strata, Luminosa, Citra, Citra Incognito, Citra Cryo and Nelson Sauvin.”
Why wait until Friday, though? Hellbender collaborated with Red Bear on Rampage in DC. “We have been talking about doing a high ABV stout collaboration for a while. Since this type of beer ages well we thought it would be super cool to split the batch and release a barrel aged version later. We wanted to feature both of our mascots in the branding and after kicking a few ideas around of how to do that we settled on doing a play on the old school video game/movie ‘Rampage,’” Simon Bee, Red Bear’s co-founder and Director of Operations, tells us. Unlike the rest of the beers mentioned, it’s available now, 12% ABV.
Support your local businesses, and we’ll happily update this post with more Black Friday beer releases.
