{"id":3480,"date":"2011-06-20T00:01:22","date_gmt":"2011-06-19T12:01:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/?p=3480"},"modified":"2011-11-06T03:04:26","modified_gmt":"2011-11-05T14:04:26","slug":"sierra-nevada-30th-anniversary-black-barleywine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2011\/06\/20\/sierra-nevada-30th-anniversary-black-barleywine\/","title":{"rendered":"Sierra Nevada 30th Anniversary Black Barleywine"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Sierra<\/a>
Sierra Nevada 30th Anniversary Black Barleywine <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Well now. It has<\/em> been a while. Again<\/a>. The value of t<\/em><\/a> has graduated to the triple digits and is going to need a serious hammering to get back to a civilised size. So: roll sleeves up, make sandwich, brew tea, forget about tea, grab beer, roll sleeves back down because it’s actually kinda chilly, remember about tea, curse bad memory, and back to it<\/em>.1<\/sup><\/p>\n

I’ve long been a sucker for an Occasion Beer, and brewery anniversaries are a great excuse to try something new and celebrate what you’re all about. They’re results aren’t always<\/em> spectacular; Tuatara basically phoned it in with their \u2018X\u2019\u00a0ale<\/a>, if you ask me (although this year’s XI was a massive improvement on pitch, execution and all fronts — it’ll show up a little later in the Diary<\/em>).<\/em> But at the other end of the naff-awesome spectrum is 8 Wired, who\u00a0knocked the ball out of the park and pretty much brewed the Platonic Form of the Anniversary Beer with their masterful \u2018Batch 18\u2019<\/a>. Sierra Nevada, facing their unquestionably-milestonish 30th birthday, undertook a project of suitable size and scope, and which also nicely demonstrated their (relative) Elder Statesman status in the craft brewing business and the getting-shit-done capacity that that entails.<\/p>\n

For a few years, they’d brewed an ‘Anniversary Ale’ for their birthday, basically a variant-edition of the Cascade-heavy pale ale that made them famous — and basically made “American Pale Ale” into a thing<\/em> at all. With the big three-oh coming up, and since they were never only<\/em> all about the pale ale, they broadened the scope of the Birthday Project to include multiple brews, in several styles, made in collaboration with all sorts of industry notables. Two of the series made it as far as us: an ‘Imperial Helles’ (a genuinely-interesting embiggened lager that managed to build something relaxed and worthy where a superficially-similar thing like Crown ‘Ambassador’<\/a> instead almost<\/em> drowns in its own wank — I had mine on my 31st birthday, which seemed appropriate enough), and this<\/em>.<\/p>\n

It’s a glorious big-in-every-direction kind of thing; huge and boozy and rich and many-layered. Weighty and thick, it had a peculiar combination of sweetness and savory smokiness that made it like some Mad Science hybrid of birthday cake and birthday steak<\/em>. My notes inevitably don’t do it any justice; this is another Distracted Diary<\/em> Entry — not to the point where I had to take a do-over the next day, as I did with after the Random Ragtime Band Incident<\/a> — since my friends Aran (that’s him in the red hoodie, attempting \/ succeeding at a photobomb) and Maeve were in town before heading off to pack up one house, move into another, then pop over to Italy to get married. As you do.<\/p>\n

Freakishly, just as I finally type this up way<\/em> too late, they were in the bar again tonight for the first time since. These things happen alarmingly often: Rex Attitude<\/a>\u2019s second batch appeared just as my tardy notes appeared online, and the same thing happened, if I remember rightly, with Hop Zombie<\/a>. My slackness does have a weird way of keeping me relevant, somehow (in peculiar senses, at least), but I should take the time to promise (but not guarantee) that I am trying to trim it down…<\/p>\n

\"Sierra<\/a>
Diary II entry #112, Sierra Nevada 30th Anniversary Black Barleywine<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Verbatim:<\/strong> Sierra Nevada 30th Anniversary Black Barleywine 20\/6\/11 10.2% \u00f7 3 w\/ George & Aran (Maeve is driving) George had the Moa R.I.S. before this, fittingly<\/a>. He says its more Marvin Gaye than Barry White, and Aran has it as coffee made with slightly-too-hot water, slightly sweet-smoky, which suits the BBQ-esque pizza. Cheap licorice, says Aran. The taste v flavouring problem. Licorice kiss ice cream, he says. Ah, distracted notes. Never do justice.<\/p>\n

\n

1: That is<\/em> an accurate sequence for the moment preceding sitting down to write this evening. A full<\/em> accounting of the process would also include breaks \/ interruptions along the lines of: read news, clean kitchen, play Bastion<\/a><\/em>, go grocery shopping, watch Futurama<\/a>, and then<\/em> remember about the tea (again) and brew another pot<\/em>. If there was a procrastination event at the Olympics, I’d have a collection of shiny medals by now — if<\/em> I ever got around to signing up.<\/span><\/p>\n

Originally \/ eventually posted: 5 November 2011<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Well now. It has been a while. Again. The value of t has graduated to the triple digits and is going to need a serious hammering to get back to a civilised size. So: roll sleeves up, make sandwich, brew tea, forget about tea, grab beer, roll sleeves back down because it’s actually kinda chilly, … Continue reading Sierra Nevada 30th Anniversary Black Barleywine<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[27,6,20],"class_list":["post-3480","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-diary","tag-ale","tag-pages","tag-united-states"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1035,"url":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2010\/11\/15\/sierra-nevada-pale-ale\/","url_meta":{"origin":3480,"position":0},"title":"Sierra Nevada Pale Ale","author":"Phil","date":"November 15, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm not going to get properly into the whole \u201cgrey market\u201d (or \"gray market\", if you're American) debate here. I'm sure I will do so more fully at a later time, when it inevitably flares up again. I'm actually pretty sympathetic to both sides -- which is rare. My own\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Actual Diary entries"","block_context":{"text":"Actual Diary entries","link":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/category\/diary\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Sierra Nevada Pale Ale","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Sierra-Nevada-Pale-Ale-and-tap-handle-225x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1389,"url":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2009\/03\/18\/birra-moretti-la-rossa-again\/","url_meta":{"origin":3480,"position":1},"title":"Birra Moretti ‘La Rossa’, again","author":"Phil","date":"March 18, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"We were out for a surprise birthday dinner for Robyn's 30th, where I got to play beer nerd \/ consultant, and couldn't resist another La Rossa -- especially since they had the cute little glass. Afterthoughts, February 2011: This was a great little night out, and one of the unexpected\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Actual Diary entries"","block_context":{"text":"Actual Diary entries","link":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/category\/diary\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Birra Moretti 'La Rossa'","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Birra-Moretti-La-Rossa-again-225x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":342,"url":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2008\/05\/16\/orkney-skull-splitter\/","url_meta":{"origin":3480,"position":2},"title":"Orkney ‘Skull Splitter’","author":"Phil","date":"May 16, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"At last -- he says, after a few days of data-entry -- we arrive at the bit where the photo-taking habit begins in earnest. It gets a little patchy with the actual Diary for a while, but they'll soon synch up. Verbatim: Orkney Skull Splitter. 16\/5\/08. $10 @ Malthouse 8.5%.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Actual Diary entries"","block_context":{"text":"Actual Diary entries","link":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/category\/diary\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Orkney 'Skull Splitter'","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Orkney-Skull-Splitter-1-225x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":835,"url":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2010\/09\/27\/golden-bear-bear-trappe-2010\/","url_meta":{"origin":3480,"position":3},"title":"Golden Bear ‘Bear Trappe’ 2010","author":"Phil","date":"September 27, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"I suspected I'd like this; it was recommended by a few people who are usually good for such things (including Kieran, the Beer Wizard in Residence at Regional). But I was pleasantly surprised to utterly freaking love it. Golden Bear is a tiny little brewery at the top of the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Actual Diary entries"","block_context":{"text":"Actual Diary entries","link":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/category\/diary\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Golden Bear 'Bear Trappe'","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Golden-Bear-Bear-Trappe-225x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":19664,"url":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2018\/01\/08\/podcast-special\/","url_meta":{"origin":3480,"position":4},"title":"The 2017 Beer Diary Podcast Unexpected Christmas Special","author":"Phil","date":"January 8, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"For the holidays \u2014 the familiar public ones, but also the 14th anniversary of the first entry in my actual Beer Diary \u2014\u00a0George and I sat down to talk about what's changed, and what hasn't, in the time since we last did one of these. We cover a little of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Podcast episodes"","block_context":{"text":"Podcast episodes","link":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/category\/podcast-episodes\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":799,"url":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2010\/09\/18\/cucapa-obscura\/","url_meta":{"origin":3480,"position":5},"title":"Cucap\u00e1 ‘Obscura’","author":"Phil","date":"September 18, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"The last of my trio of Cucap\u00e1 beers, and certainly the pick of the bunch. Which is a little surprising, since you might fairly assume that a Mexican brewer would do the Light & Refreshing better than they do the Bigger & Sippier, given climate and whatnot. (The nerds on\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Actual Diary entries"","block_context":{"text":"Actual Diary entries","link":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/category\/diary\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Cucapa 'Obscura'","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Cucapa-Obscura-225x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3480","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3480"}],"version-history":[{"count":22,"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3480\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3544,"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3480\/revisions\/3544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}