Firestone Walker §ucaba (Abacus)

Brewed By: Firestone Walker Brewing Co. in Paso Robles, California

Purchased: 22oz (1 Pint, 6oz) bomber from Binny's in Chicago, Illinois; 2014 (2014 Vintage)

Style/ABV: English Barleywine, 13.5% 

Reported IBUs: 42

Tonight I'm slaying a West Coast #whale checking a beer off my bucket list. About Firestone: 

Tonight I'm looking at a beer from the folks at Firestone Walker Brewing. The brewery was founded by brothers-in-law Adam Firestone (son of Brooks Firestone) and David Walker (husband of Adam's sister). The brothers brewed their first beer in 1996, in a small facility rented from the Firestone Vineyard estate in Santa Barbara County. In 2001, the brothers-in-law purchased SLO Brewing Company in Paso Robles, CA, and set up camp. Despite being relatively new to craft beer, the brewery has a ton of accolades, and is known for their Reserve line and their oak barrel brewing system. You can learn more about the history of the brewery here and here. 

The §ucaba aka the "Sucaba" is Firestone's barleywine formerly known as Abacus. The brewery was forced to change the beer's name due to trademark disputes with ZD Wines of Napa. ZD Wines makes a high-end Cabernet Sauvignon called Abacus. What can you do but lawyer up and scramble those letters. At least Firestone has a cool trademark dispute story that came from it.

The §ucaba is a "true English Barley wine." This one is brewed in bourbon oak barrels, and is described as having complex malt flavors with dark chocolate, vanilla, toasted coconut, and dark cherries. This one uses Bravo, and East Kent Golding hops. The malt bill includes Munton's Pale, Crisp Maris Otter Pale, Munich, Dark & Light Crystal, and Chocolate malts. Punching in at 13.5% and 42 IBUs, this is a beer to be sipped on for the ages.

Firestone Walker §ucaba (Abacus) - 2014

The 2014 §ucaba pours initially into a dark raisin body, but quickly settles into a murky, dark brown haze. It's like the DV clinic on barrel aged beers. The beer kicks up a finger of foamy, brown head. When I shine a bright light through the heart of this beer, I get a beet-red body with serious ruby tones. There's also a good amount of sediment floating around with the streams of tiny carbonation. The beer has vitality: swirling it kicks up a ring of brown/amber head, and there is sticky lacing and glossy alcohol legs to boot.

Straight up on the aroma I'm getting a good amount of bourbon and barrel character. It's fleeting though, as the aroma gives way to brown sugar, raisins/figs/cherries, toffee, chocolate, oven toasted coconut, vanilla-coconut, and some tropical fruit sweetness. The tropical fruit sweetness is in the realm of coconut and pineapple, and I think it is coming from the beer's high levels of sugar...it could be a hop character playing off the sweetness. This smells good, but not dick-ripping-off. Here's to the taste, chimp, here's to the taste.

Holy shit. Wow. Based on the aroma, I was not expecting this amount of awesome. Straight up is a huge HUG of sweetness, with bourbon, oak, giant inviting barrel character, vanilla, coconut, and chocolate. The mouthfeel is full-bodied and dense and boozy, but for some reason it doesn't approach cloying. I'm getting bourbon, barrel, toffee, raisins, figs, cherries, chocolate/vanilla, big toasted coconut, intense brown sugar, molasses, nuttiness from the coconut, and hints of elusive pineapple-coconut sweetness. There's a light kiss of sharp booze and some barrel tannin goodness. Yum.

This is banging, with a full-bodied mouthfeel that still falls on the lighter side of what you could get at 13.5% and in a barrel. It's sugary and big, with minimal carbonation and lots of slickness. It's a sipper, yo. This beer also unravels layers of toffee, sweet coconut, and cherry as it warms up. I cannot stress this enough, pull this out at cellar temps and let it warm up. Palate depth is great, and this beer has really nice complexity for what essentially is a one-dimensional style of Strong Ale. You get oak, bourbon, and booze up front, with burgeoning figs, raisins, and cherries, and some nice chocolate/vanilla; the mids dial up layers of toffee, brown sugar, chocolate, vanilla, coconut, cherries, and hints of pineapple/coconut; the back is lingering oak/vanilla/coconut, lingering toffee, and sticky, boozy goodness. This is a hell of a sipper, and should last you over an hour or two.

Rating: Divine Brew (4.5/5.0 Untappd)

I'm feeling a Light Divine Brew on this. This is kind of hot right now (my fault, I know), and probably will smooth out a bit with a year or two under the belt. I think cellaring beer is overrated, and I am usually the person telling you to NOT age your #whale, but you can definitely keep a spare bottle or two of this for a rainy day. Do try it fresh though...it's drinking VERY, VERY nice right now. I have no complaints, and plan to sit back with the second half of my bottle and watch The Walking Dead. This is the ultimate "don't pair with food" beer, so yeah. Sip on this. Enjoy. Life is short, and this is a diamond in the rough. Recommended.

Random Thought: I'm going full insanity wolf here, being that a few hours ago I was crapping out a kidney via IBS. I had IBS on top of running and lifting weights, so I am -- as they say -- le tired. I'm going to sleep like a drunk baby tonight.