It is great to have a Trader Joe’s across the street from you especially when they have the Mission Street line of beers and some of their other private label brands that are very inexpensively priced for the quality of beer that you are getting.
This is a Firestone Walker beer and it is a blend of three different beers so it’s sort of a baby version and extremely baby version at that of the anniversary beers that they release each year. It is called an Imperial brown and I don’t know how much longer Firestone will actually brew this particular brand but if you can get your hands on the 2014 it is out and you should get it.
2011 pours a black with reddish tint. The initial smell from this is big caramel notes with a little bit of oak and a touch little bit of bourbon to it but definitely a caramel sweetness has sort of taken over the whole beer at this point.
It is still zippy though even though it does have much more of a silky mouth feel to it. The alcohol definitely is also more prominent then you would expect from an 8.5% beer but that is more than likely why you shouldn’t of gone past the three years that it has been aging
The verdict probably a year maybe maybe year and a half tops but three is definitely a bit on the long side for holding onto this one. I should’ve opened this much earlier.