Boston Brewing Co is celebrating 15 years of providing our community with locally crafted brews this year. We are enormously blessed to have received support from so many people over this time. To celebrate this milestone year, we have taken all the brewing skills we have developed over the years to create this once-in-a-lifetime brew.
Our first goal was to create a 15% ABV beer to represent our 15 year anniversary. This is no easy task, as most brewing yeast simply refuses to stop working once the ABV reaches 10-12%. But by treating the yeast very gently and with much love, we were able to coax it into working overtime and reaching our goal.
When it came to designing the recipe, we looked back at an old and very traditional English style called Barleywine. Despite the name, no grapes are used to make this beer. Rather, it is a beer brewed once a year (like wine) and to a high degree of alcohol (like wine), and often stored for years or even decades (like wine). This beer is absolutely packed with rich caramel malts and a blend of European and American hops. The resulting beer has an intense honey and brown sugar character, along with notes of dried fruit and dried herbs from the prodigious hopping rate.
As if all this wasn’t enough, we partnered with our friends at Nullaki Whisky to age this beer in their freshly emptied whisky casks, which adds additional layers of toffee and oak flavour to the beer. This is truly a special drop that we produced with much pride and appreciation for our many loyal fans.
This beer is tasting great now, but the flavours will actually develop and become even richer with time. I myself will be taking home a handful of bottles to be opened up every couple of years so I can watch this beer mature with age.
Please enjoy this beer with friends, poured into your finest snifter, tulip, or wine glass. This beer is best enjoyed around 10C, so remove the bottle from your fridge about 15 minutes before you plan to drink it.
Cheers to another fifteen years!
