DuClaw Brewing Company

In early spring of 2011, we brewed an Imperial Stout for the sole purpose of allowing it to age for 6 months inside Kentucky White Oak Bourbon barrels, and RETRIBUTION was born. When the last barrel of Retribution stopped filling just past the half full mark, we were hit by an epiphany: Let’s fill the barrel the remainder of the way with COLOSSUS. We had no idea how it would taste, but we decided to leave it to fate.

Retribution is the embodiment of patience, craft and perseverance. But, waiting 6 months to try our experimental blend was perhaps the ultimate exercise in these virtues. The resulting 15.5% abv 60/40 blend of Retribution and Colossus was nothing short of divine. Such an extraordinary beer requires extraordinary packaging. The bottle labels were printed on a 100 year old Chandler & Price platen press (similar to a Heidelberg) named “Bessy” by Gilah Press in Baltimore using specially selected paper to convey the handcrafted precision of the beer.

Because the labels were “crafted printed”, they do not have pre-applied adhesive, making them unusable in our automated bottle labeler. But, in the true spirit of our craft, our creative director and brewery staff numbered, applied the labels to the bottles, and wax sealed them by hand to complete packaging worthy of our Divine Retribution.

We put our hearts and souls into this beer, and it is BEYOND AMAZING. Only 168 bottles of DIVINE RETRIBUTION series #1 were produced and they will be hitting the shelves of select retailers today, so grab one of these extremely limited edition bottles before they’re gone! Oh, and in answer to the inevitable question this post will spur, YES, there will be a DIVINE RETRIBUTION series #2. What we will blend with Retribution in series #2, however, is the real question. Enjoy.

Craft be cherished…Rules be damned!

Dave

First, thanks to all who visited us at this year’s BAM Octoberfest.  I hope you guys had a good time, because we sure did.  As some of you may have noticed, we launched a new beer called Retribution that day.  You also might have noticed another ‘surprise’ beer called Divine Retribution.  In barrel aging our beers, we use 53 gallon Heaven Hills Bourbon barrels.  For Divine Retribution, we filled one barrel about 60% Retribution and the other 40% was Colossus.

To answer some questions, we will be releasing this soon in 22oz bottles.  But, we will only have about 156 of them.  Stay tuned here at the blog to hear when (and where) they are going.  It will be posted here first.

I will be posting some more info on Divine and some other beers later this week (no promises though as Baltimore Beer Week is putting a strain on my time and liver)…

Cheers,

Dave

Well, we are almost done all of preparations for this years fest.  I have to say, I am pretty excited about this year.  We have some great vintages going, Devil’s Milk ’06, ’07, ’09 and ’10.  We have the last two kegs of the Big Boy, Colossus.

And we will be debuting our newest addition..RETRIBUTION, our Single Barrel Imperial Stout.  We aged this beer 6 months (192 days) in Heaven Hill bourbon barrels, then bottled each barrel separately..no mixing.  We will have approximately 168 bottles per barrel and 20 barrels.  Each bottle will have which barrel it came from on the label (see pic at right).  Some barrels have strong notes of chocolate, some of bourbon, some of the wood sweetness and some of vanilla.  Each barrel is unique.  If you like bourbon barrel stouts, I think you are going to like this.

Here is a video from last year, just to jog your memory…

Hope to see you there!

Cheers,

Dave

ps – did I forget to mention our surprises? Well, you are just going to have to be there to find out….

I know we have the Age of the Web, but word moves faster than I can imagine.  You will get your first taste at the Real Ale Fest this year (tix go on sale August 18th -online..so get on our email list if you haven’t).

http://mybeerbuzz.blogspot.com/2011/08/duclawretribution-imperial-stout.html