Beer- #1,092 – Epic – Epicurean Coffee and Fig Oatmeal Stout – Three is a crowd – 2014
It’s a taste-off of beers, an old beer and a newer old beer beer. I’m going to taste again the 2013, the 2014 and the 2015 versions of the Epic – Epicurean Coffee & Fig Oatmeal Stout, a bit mad if you ask me. Not all at once even I saw the sense in speaking these out over three posts I first wrote about this beer in 2015 where is scored 8 on the random number pdubyah-o-meter.
a celebration of the flavours
A beer that are of 8% ABV, and 50 IBU things, making it about 240 calories a serving size, each 750ml bottle contains 4.73 standard drink units in NZ.
This is then beer from Epic Brewing Company (NZ) brewed at Steam Brewing Company in the style that is Imperial Stout and they are in Auckland, New Zealand
olde as me
The Epicurean series is a celebration of the flavours and aromas that can be found within the diverse range of ingredients that brewers and chefs alike use in their creations.
This beer is a culmination of hours of cerebration, experimentation, cogitation and libation. And a sprinkling of dehydrated finesse.
2014: Caramelised Turkish Nerida Figs, Caffe L’Affare Ethiopian Sidamo whole beans and Philippine Toasted Coconut
So, What could possibly go Wrong?
There’s always always a chance that this might not have aged well, although it’s lived in the fridge all the time sometimes you can’t get what you want. So there is trepidation. I expect it to be fine though.
There’s still life in the old thing, and opening release a lovely deep chocolaty waft with some underlying slight sourness, but mostly milky chocolate, this pleases me.
The pour is magnificent with a deep fluffy pillowy head that sits staunch and form atop.
The initial taste is one of green coffee beans mostly, that sort of bitter sourness that you can get with coffee, but this is nice, it isn’t a bad thing, it’s just quite bold.
It’s quite full in the mouth, which it isn’t and I’m really reaching and stretching for this to be good, it really isn’t full in the the mouth at all, it really is just alcoholic cold brew coffee which in my opinion should be a thing.
I’m not crying, you are
However, as much as I want this this to be deep, rich, bold and thunderously thick it isn’t. It it lead by that green coffee note. This appears wildly and almost the opposite of how I drank it in 2014/5 where I thought it was velvet and soft and other words that rhyme with delicious.
Again it is nice but it is really like drinking cold coffee with not a lot else around it. I think I’m as disappointed as I could be, and I’d be properly scathing if I’d paid silly money for what must be a bit of a rarity in beers to have this served.
But you know as well I do that sitting about for a few years may or may not pay dividends, in this case not.
And so, for perhaps the first time we discovered the answer to the question and found out what went wrong.
The pdubyah-o-meter rates this as 7 This is quite a setback to the aspirations and dreams I had of waffling on and waxing lyrical about what a genius move this was in hindsight, where I’m now stuck at, well it’s not like I paid money for it recently and therefore I’m having a buyers remorse.
- Where did I get this? They’re treasures from the fridge, probably though Liquirland stores have the newest versions available.
- Am I enjoying it? No, sadly this is a bit of a travesty.
- Would I have another? Not like this no, please don’t let it end like this.
- Would I share with a friend on a porch and set the world to rights? Yes and no, because it could have been a contender but it’s turned out a bit of a bum. There is merit is ageing beers, however badly I’ve done it or it’s turned out, and I’d enjoy talking to someone about what could and should happen and what might and probably does happen once beer is in bottles and out of the light.
I’m listening to The Next Day by David Bowie on the Vinyl version, but it’s on Spotify
The album is from 2013, and I’m ashamed that I haven’t played it more.
STOUT
Many stouts do not fit the classic “Irish” definition as exemplified by Guinness, either due to their hop or roast rates, or higher gravity (in the case of many American stouts). They are still basic stouts, however, not falling into any of the subclasses.
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Previously I’ve drunk the 2011 – a 9 on the pdubyah-o-meter, and the 2013 – also a 9 , and the 2014 got to an 8 on the pdubyah-o-meter, and obviously I missed a trick in 2012.
A life just as ordinary 