Recently in Kane Category

Am I alone in just wanting a straight bourbon barrel aged stout? Lately, I feel like there's always adjuncts or additions of stuff like lactose, vanilla, coffee, cinnamon, maple syrup, toasted coconut, chile peppers, cacao nibs, hazelnut, pecans, and ever more bizarre ingredients "foraged" in obscure ways. I'm pretty sure you could just bottle actual brownie batter and call it a beer, and you'll get people lining up five hours before opening. Don't get me wrong, I'm a total novelty whore and love a good pastry stout as much as the next guy, but sometimes you want to just get back to basics. Ultimately, that's what I really love, and when something only comes in, for example, a coffee treatment, I'm always stuck wondering how much I'd love a version that doesn't have that coffee. Blasphemy to some, I'm sure.

We all know that Kane has a pretty great barrel program, and their big flagship in that arena is their series of A Night To End All Dawns (henceforth ANTEAD) beers. In the past, they've made variants with coffee, vanilla, cacao nibs, coconut, and differing barrels (probably amongst others), but for whatever reason, this year there were only two: regular ol' Bourbon Barrel Aged and a Rye Barrel Aged. Speculation was that the yields were low this year, so there wasn't enough to go around for the variants. Fortunately for me, I managed to snag a couple bottles of the regular BBA ANTEAD (the other set with the rye barrel variant sold out in about 10 seconds during the online sale), and truth be told, I'm not all that broken up about not getting any variants (though I did have a taste of Vanilla ANTEAD once that was pretty darned great).

The description is pretty simple: it's a big imperial stout that spent about a year in bourbon barrels. I keep thinking the name must be an allusion to something, but as near as I can tell, it's just a nice, evocative name for a stout. Certainly it's not a reference to Kane's advocacy on behalf of the antichrist, who promises an eternity of darkness and thus a significant lack of dawns. A Night to End All Dawns soon approaches, and Kane will wreak doom upon the earth (they are located in New Jersey, after all*). Or maybe they're just making really good beer:

Kane A Night To End All Dawns - Pours a deep black color with half a finger of short-lived light brown head. Smells retains hints of underlying roast, with lots of caramel, chocolate, marshmallow, vanilla, oak and bourbon. Taste is sweet, rich caramel up front, some of that underlying roasted malt, chocolate, followed by the bourbon, oak, and vanilla, maybe that marshmallow, finishing with a boozy bite. Mouthfeel is perfect, rich, full bodied, and chewy, carbonation is just right, with plenty of boozy heat. Some might say it's too "hot", but I rather enjoyed that aspect of it. Overall, yup, it's a fantastic beer with depth and complexity, even (or maybe especially) without the adjuncts and crazy ingredients. A

Beer Nerd Details: 12.4% ABV bottled (750 ml black waxed cap). Drank out of a snifter on 11/9/18. Vintage: 2017 (released in 2018).

Yep, I really need to continue hunting down Kane's barrel aged wares, as they've been uniformly great so far. Or, you know, one of you local Philly area brewers could build up an equally effective barrel program (beyond sours and, believe it or not, coffee stouts). Or I could just drink Parabola all the time. Not the worst option in the world.

* I kid! I kid because I love.

Allright, stay with me here. In 2012, Kane was celebrating their first anniversary, and they put out a beer called Three Hundred Sixty Five (the significance of this name is obviously a total mystery.) It was comprised of a blend of 70% Belgian-style quadrupel and 30% barrel-aged imperial stout. Most of that was released then, but some of the finished blend was racked back into bourbon barrels for another year. At their second anniversary party in 2013, they incorporated some of that aged juice into their next anniversary beer, Seven Hundred Thirty (again with the cryptic name), but reserved some of it for release on draft on its own. At their third anniversary in 2014, they incorporated Seven Hundred Thirty into their next anniversary beer, One Thousand Ninety Five (I suppose I've worn this naming joke down to the bone, so I'll refrain this time and this time only). I think you're getting the solera-like pattern here, but the point is that at that third anniversary, they finally released some of the original Bourbon Barrel-Aged Three Hundred and Sixty Five in bottles. So if I've got the chronology right, they brewed and blended it, aged it in bourbon barrels for a year, then bottle conditioned for another year before releasing.

Then it made it's way to me after another, er, 3-4 years or so in the bottle. Quite the storied beer. As we've seen recently, Kane's got a pretty darned good barrel program, so let's dig in:

Kane Bourbon Barrel Aged Three Hundred and Sixty Five - Pours a murky, very dark brown color with a half finger of off white, fizzy head that does not stick around very long. Smells nice, lots of that bourbon, oak, and vanilla, along with some almost cola-like spice notes. Taste is very sweet, hits some Belgian yeast spiciness, that cola-like character is there too, with a nice, boozy bourbon, oak, and vanilla character. Mouthfeel is on the lighter end of full bodied, rich but again on the lighter side of that spectrum, nice tight carbonation too. Overall, it has a neat sorta bourbon barrel aged coke feel to it, with some added Belgian yeast notes for complexity. Having had some of the newer anniversary blends, I suspect that while this was quite nice, it would have been better if not aged as long as it was. Still really happy to have tried it! B+

Beer Nerd Details: 12.2% ABV bottled (750 ml silver wax). Drank out of a tulip glass on 6/22/18. Released: 2014.

Many thanks to Gene of Talkbeer for sending this my way (he was very generously making good on a mixup from a while back that was totally not his fault). I will most certainly be seeking out more from Kane's barrel program.

Object Permanence is the idea that objects continue to exist even when you are no longer observing them. Unfortunately, beer does cease to exists if you insist on drinking it. Doubly unfortunate when the beer is as good as this one.

Kane was one of the brewers that made this Pennsylvanian take notice of New Jersey, which sez a lot, and I've been particularly impressed with their barrel program. A Night to End All Dawns and its associated variants are spectacular, but alas, I keep losing the lottery and have to make due with the generosity of friends at shares to get a taste of the stuff. I've had a few tastes of other Barrel Aged goodies from them, which have been uniformly great. Fortunately, I did manage to procure this bit of life, an English Barleywine with a complicated malt bill aged in bourbon barrels for over a year. The beer is gone, but the idea continues to exist even though I can no longer drink it. Or something like that. What is this, a psychology blog? No, it's a beer blog, so read my dumb tasting notes:

Kane Object Permanence - Pours a murky brown color with a cap of off-white head. Smells fantastic, rich toffee, caramel, a hint of dark fruit, and a great bourbon, oak, and vanilla character. Taste follows the nose, rich toffee, caramel, dark fruit, and a boozy bourbon, oak, and vanilla character. Mouthfeel is full bodied, rich, and chewy, almost creamy, moderate carbonation provides just enough levity, some boozy heat but nothing unwieldy. Overall, this is fantastic, one of the better examples of life that I've had. A

Beer Nerd Details: 11.8% ABV bottled (750 ml waxed). Drank out of a snifter on 4/20/18. Vintage: 2016 (batch 1?)

I've recently come into a couple of more Kane bottles. One is last year's vintage of Object Permanence (huzzah), and the other is a BBA anniversary beer from them. Stay tuned. I may not wait two months to write that one up (assuming I drink it soon). Fingers crossed for this year's ANTEAD lottery too.