Reuben’s Brews To Release 2015 Bourbon Barrel Imperial Stout

Reuben's Brews 2015 Bourbon Barrel Imperial Stout (photo courtesy of Reuben's Brews)
Reuben’s Brews 2015 Bourbon Barrel Imperial Stout (photo courtesy of Reuben’s Brews)

SEATTLE, Wash. (Dec. 9, 2015) Tis the season for one of Reuben’s Brews’ most popular beers. The 2015 vintage of our Bourbon Barrel Imperial Stout (BBIS) will be released in 22oz bottles at noon on Saturday, Dec. 19 in the taproom.

In its brief history BBIS has already won a number of accolades from local beer lovers, and has won Gold Medals at the 2013 and 2014 World Beer Championships and at the 2015 Best of Craft Beer Awards.

“We’re really excited for this year’s release,” says co-founder and head brewer Adam Robbings. “We updated the recipe slightly to make it fuller, richer, with even more milk chocolate notes. We sourced 5- to 12-year-old bourbon barrels, and aged all of this years release in first-use barrels. We waited patiently until the beer was ready – and we’re pleased to say that time has come!”

Another advantage of our expansion earlier this year is that we were able to brew more BBIS than last year – almost 75% more.  This will mean more BBIS should be available to cope with the release day.

Barrel Aging at Reuben's Brews
Barrel Aging at Reuben’s Brews

Also, as we sampled each barrel of BBIS to get a feel for the blend we found that one was exceptional by itself. It displayed – unblended – all the character we were looking for: rich body, vanilla, bourbon, light oak, and smooth milk chocolate. Instead of blending that barrel into this year’s BBIS, we decided to keep it separate and bottle it by itself. We named this special unblended version Barrel 7, after the number on the barrel.

As in prior year releases, bottles are $15 each and will only be available in the taproom on a first-come/first served basis. BBIS bottles will be limited to 4 bottles per person, per day. Barrel 7 has a limit of 1 bottle per person, per day.

To celebrate the release, the Burgerphenia food truck will be onsite and we’ll have some special beers on tap, including a keg of both the 2014 and 2013 BBIS. Then at 4 p.m., we’ll tap our only keg of Barrel 7.

About Reuben’s Brews
Reuben’s Brews is a small, family-owned brewery located in the Ballard neighborhood of Seattle, WA. Since we opened in 2012, our beer has been awarded several local, regional, national and international awards. We won a gold and a bronze medal at the 2015 Great American Beer Festival awards, have been awarded 30 World Beer Championships medals, and were named Mid-Sized Brewery of the Year at the 2015 Washington Beer Awards. Our expanded taproom and production brewery opened in May 2015. For more information, visit www.reubensbrews.com or follow us on Facebook and Twitter.