FiftyFifty Imperial Eclipse Stout - Heaven Hill Rye Barrel

Brewed by FiftyFifty Brewing Co.
Style: Imperial Stout
Truckee, California USA

Serve in Snifter

send corrections   |   shelftag   |   edit barcodes   |   update pic

Extremely well balanced with cocoa, coffee, molasses, Brandy and vanilla. One of the best Imperial Stouts I've come cross. ---Rated via Beer Buddy for iPhone

Pours dark brown with low black head. Aroma of vanilla, melasses, toffee, dark chocolate. Taste is an explosion of boozy sweet, then nothing. Finish is mostly dark chocolate. Body is creamy with low to medium carbonation. ---Rated via Beer Buddy for iPhone

Pours black with low latte Brown head Aromas of vanilla, coffee, hins of raisins

Rittenhouse Rye Barrel 2012: Le côté épicé du rye bourbon est étonnement très présent et se marie parfaitement à la base de l’eclipse. La vanille et le chocolat noir sont masqués par le seigle et ça lui donne un caractère unique, vraiment intéressant.

2011 vintage. Pours a deep umber black with a thick mocha foam. Aromas are chocolate roasted malt, spicy pepper, coffee, vanilla and a touch of prune. The plate is silky smooth with a great round mouthfeel and smooth creamy finish. Nice chocolate sweetness and a deep warming spice from the rye barrel. Solid BA stout... looking to try more of the various barrels !

We did a taste testing of five different 50-50 2012 stouts. For the base stout, it’s quite frankly superb. Pours black, with a beautiful yellowish-white froth. Some coffee notes, little bitterness, but the predominating flavor is roasted malt. Of the five we tasted, the mellow corn was tied as my favorite. The rye character of the barrel was well pronounced in the flavor, almost giving it a black IPA character. The rye was the yang to the mellow corn version’s yin. If you only taste two, Ritttenhouse Rye and mellow corn in my estimation are the way to go.

2009 bottle with green way. Dark brown to black flat pour. Smells and tastes really good, especially after the weird bottle of World Wide Stout I just had to drain pour (tasted like nail polish). Medium to full bodied, roasty, chocolate, coconut. Great beer.

Green Wax, Rittenhouse Rye Barrel, Btl No. BR / 1 2012
A steady pour into my Teku glass produces a two-finger thick, richly browned, full tan colored head. The beer is a mostly black, definitely opaque color. The aroma smells quite prominently of spirits / barrel character; lots of sweet coconut, vanillin, spicy, sort of melon like, hot / warming Whiskey notes really seem to dominate the aroma profile of this beer. If you really dig for it you get hints of toasted / burnt malt, perhaps some coffee like roast notes, but really the base beer profile is consumed by the prior barrel contents.

Lightly sweet, rich feeling, dense, with lots of smooth roasted character, dark chocolate, and sweetened coffee liquor notes up front. The middle sees a huge toasted coconut and vanillin character take hold, with almost a butterscotch like character, and then, in the finish, a spicy, woody, oak laden character and then a spicy, warming, Whiskey like bit of alcohol and aromatics that linger on the palate. The alcohol definitely adds a heat and harshness to the finish. The body has a nice richness to it still without being cloying. As the beer warms, a dusty, dark cocoa note comes out more, and there is a soft, toasted brown bread like character to this as well. Bitter, burnt, roasted malt notes add some roundness and complexity to the finish.

Nothing like the Grand Cru I had, this is completely dominated by the barrel character; if you like that sort of beer then this will be quite enjoyable, I am not really a big fan of over barrel aged beers and this really doesn’t do it for me. Having said that I wouldn’t call this a drain pour, but it is not something I wan’t more than a few ounces of either.

2011 Rittenhouse rye. VEry much similar to the other ones. A bit of a spice note but nothing over the top in variance.

2011 vintage, 22oz bottle pours a watery, opaque black with some spitty, beige head. Nose is boozy, pine, a little nail polish. Flavor is sweet, brown sugar, chocolate, light booze. Full, sticky finish.