Grand Teton XX Bitch Creek Double ESB

Brewed by Grand Teton Brewing Co.
Style: American Strong Ale
Victor, Idaho USA

Serve in Snifter, Trappist glass

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1Ltr bottle from BevMo Mission Valley. Pours a deep dark brown with a good sized beige head. Nose was loaded with sweetened dark fruits, cinnamon, clove. Tons of toasted malts in there as well. Flavor was quite sweet and very full in body, damn good stuff!

3rd October 2009
Bottle purchased in a Las Vegas liquor store. Opaque dark brown beer with a short lived tan head. Light malt nose. Rich soft palate. Rich malt base with a streak of marmite. Good deep rich hops. Slightly off the beaten track.

Ibrew2or3! Pours a dark caramel color with a tan head. Aroma has caramel, dark fruit and sweet malts. Sweet taste with some roastiness. Dry finish. OK.

1L bottle shared with a couple of friends. Pours mud brown with a large offwhite head. Aroma is lots of dark fruits with raisins being the dominating part, toffee, alcohol notes. Flavor is dark fruits, light alcohol, caramel, chocolate notes. Soft palate.

Pour a deep ruby red with aromas of toffee and dark fruits. Wonderful flavor for an esb, earthy and rich with toffee sweetness and perhaps even some citrus in the hops. Had from the waxed swingtop bottle.

Waxed liter swing cap bottle purchased somewhere in NY by Jimmie shared on Superbowl Sunday. Poured a good looking muddy darker brown with a smaller foamy biege head. Aroma is nice with lots of syrupy chocolate up front followed by some more typical barley wine sweet malt notes like toffee, molasses, raisin and honey along with some thick grains that reminds me of a raisin bagel. Excellent palate that was medium to fuller with a slight syrupy feel along with lively carbonation that held up well for the age ot this beer. Flavor is just like the aroma with lots of chocolate blending in with sweet malt notes like molassess, honey and toffee along with strong grains. This is a solid beer and reminds me of a chocolatey barley wine, good stuff.

Bottle shared by a friend on New Year’s Eve. Clear brown pour with a thick tan head. Aroma of grainy and caramelly malt with some fruit and grassy hops. Flavor starts with grainy malt, then a bit of strawberry and caramel malt before a grassy hop finish.

The ale pours dark brown and a bit murky. The bitter hop aroma is not very pleasant and there is some earthy funk. The flavor I get are a bitter thick muted citrus notes on a strong medium body.

wow, a surprise here! opened by myself asssuming it would be lackluster as best, boy was i wrong! pours a dense deep ruby red to light brown with a 2-3 finger orangish tan head in a pint glass. truly beautiful, consistent lacing. the aroma is very nice, and the taste is great as well. this is already drinking more like an old ale. spicey, slightly funky, awesome stuff, much better than expected. if you have any of this i would honestly suggest aging it a few more years. its seems as though some bottles are not as nice, but this one i just popped at over 2 years old is drinking very well and definitely would have held up at least a couple more years, and possible even many more. it reminds me of third coast and old horizontal with the slightly cheezy musk to it. excellent, i will probably drink this entire litre to my head tonight. quite a gem in my eyes.

This beer pours nice and flat. It does have a nice, deep amber color that shows a bright red, almost clear hue when held up to the light. The beer smells of berries and oxidation; despite the swing top dipped in wax bottle, this clearly wasn’t closed properly, actually the metal wire contraption completely popped off the bottle after I removed enough of the wax to free it.

Quite still tasting, it is somewhat light bodied but does have some heft to it. The beer has a herbal and berry like hop character to it up front that melds with sherry notes of nutty oxidation in the finish. The ample bitterness pairs interestingly with the oxidation in the finish, it is not objectionable, but definitely interesting. The oxidation has added some richness to the caramelized malt character that forms the backbone of this beer and there is even some light toasty / roasted character to this beer that may be accentuated / contributed by the oxidation.

I wasn’t expecting much from this beer, and the lack of a seal certainly made for a flat experience. Still it is not half bad, the oxidation has paired somewhat interestingly with the hop character. The lack of carbonation has certainly hurt this beer, and if it had been carbonated the oxidation would not have been a problem.

In short: A mess
How: Bottle 1L swing-top. Consumed fresh (probably fresh) soon after purchase. Tasting session with Montreal crew
The look: Cloudy dark amber body topped by a small beige head
In long: Nose is a blend of cat food and leafy hops. Taste is dirty, buttery cereals, citrus fruits, roasted vegetables, cardboard/oxidation. Was there something wrong with the bottle. There were oxidation signs yet the bottle was freshly purchased from a reputable store. And because of my disappointment with previous “high-end” Grand Teton lineup of 1L bottles I am now convinced that this brewery sucks. Packaging these crappy beers as luxury products in nice 1L bottles and selling them for big $ is a terrible gimmick. The only other group as reprehensible as Grand Teton is [this comment has been removed due to legal action by the Church of Scientology]