Bottle Logic: Voodoo Brewing Company: Teraphobia (USA: Imperial Stout: 14.5% ABV)
Visual: Black. Very viscous pour. Still with tiny islands of bubbles but no head to it.
Nose: Massive figs hit instantly. Cocoa dust. Toffee. Chocolate liqueur like. Buttered crumpets. Toasted marshmallows. Heavily toasted teacakes, even slightly burned.
Body: Thick. Condensed cream. Plum crème. Belgian chocolate. Bitter cocoa dust. Fig rolls. Riesen chocolate chews. Quality bourbon.
Finish: Belgian chocolate. Sweet figs and plums. Riesen chocolate chews. Cream. Quality bourbon. Bitter cocoa. Vanilla fudge. Milky coffee. Crushed bourbon biscuits.
Conclusion: This is dangerously easy to drink – smooth, liqueur like in texture, goes down so gently and is 14.5% bloody abv! I may like my rough edges in beers 90% of the time, to remind myself what I am drinking, but I am still in awe skill wise in how a bunch of USA brewers are so good at making so big beer so smooth.
Initially it just booms figs in the aroma, nigh instantly after I popped the cap off the bottle I could smell it at a distance. So figgy.
On sipping first it is so creamy, so sweet, like condensed cream swamped figs. Nice, but I was worried this would be an overly simplistic sweet treat. There are plum notes, Belgian chocolate, so sweet, so dangerous.
As time goes though the chocolate liqueur notes turn to more bitter cocoa and coffee style, along with just a tad more evident alcohol, mainly in a bourbon like character. Not rough, but hints of that spirit influence just to remind you it is here.
My favorite Bottle Logic beer is still State of Enlightenment which I need to somehow find again and do notes on, but this similarly to that plays closer to a straight imperial stout than the also delicious Voltaic Stack which was much more dessert styled. The plum notes and fig notes blend very naturally into the dark fruit side of the imperial stout style making this feel a much more balanced and more, well, beer like thing.
It is not in my top 5 best imperial stouts but holy shit that is a hard fought category. It is absolutely delicious mixing dark fruit, liqueur like chocolate base, more solid bitter chocolate notes and evident bourbon aging.
Absolutely lovely, and I am glad I picked it for my 2,500th tasting
Background: 2,500 tasting notes! Wow! I have been doing this far too long! Anyway I wanted something big for this and Left Field Beer, with perfect timing, got a new batch of Bottle Logic beers in. In the UK they are painfully expensive, so I can only get a special treat, but if anything deserved one it was my 2,500th tasting. Of the set got in this one stood out, gloriously garish label, Halloween release. A barrel aged vanilla fig imperial stout. It is listed as Barrel 001. So I presume the first release of this beer, though it is the third “fear” collaboration. I don’t know if all were done with Voodoo brewing, which is a new brewery on me. It is listed as 2024 release, so means as a Halloween beer probably had nearly a years bottle aging by the time I drank it. Probably. This was steeped on Madagascar vanilla beans and house-brûléed figs, and aged in Heavens Hill and Rye casks for two years, all of which just shouts oh yes to me. This was a pre order and arrived only just in time for my 2,500th notes. Music wise I decided to go old school with Republica’s self titled album. One of my earliest favorite albums and I still adore it years later.
