Hi River Rascals,
With our four year anniversary rapidly approaching this Saturday, March 18, I wanted to tell you all about a few things coming up, including this year’s festivities as well as what you can expect from us going into Year Five.
“This beer tastes like we took a fudge brownie and dipped it in bourbon.”
First, let’s talk Barrel Aged Stout. Our Riverlands IV anniversary stout is definitely one of my favorite non-adjunct stouts that we’ve produced. This year’s beer sat peacefully for 18 months in Elijah Craig bourbon barrels. This was our first time working with barrels from this distillery and thankfully it won’t be the last. This beer tastes like we took a fudge brownie and dipped it in bourbon. It’s full bodied, smooth, chocolatey and delicious. I’d give more descriptions, but honestly that’s not as much fun as trying it for yourself.
The only way to guarantee yourself a bottle or two of this beauty is to grab tickets to one of three sessions for our Anniversary party on 3/18. As of this writing, there are still some tickets available for each session.
As an extra treat, we created a variant of our Anniversary Stout for the first time. Exclusively for ticket holders we have Riverlands IV Aged on Espresso Coffee Beans. The espresso beans add delightful coffee flavors and aromas that complement the base beer while adding new layers of complexity.
And…surprise…we’re giving your tickets an upgrade: you can choose between two 5oz pours of regular RL4 Imperial Stout, or a 5oz pour EACH of regular and Espresso!
Beyond the anniversary party, we couldn’t be more excited going into the fifth year at our St. Charles brewery. We’ve never been happier with our recipes and processes, and recently implemented some new techniques on our hoppy beers that we feel brought them to a whole new level. Check out the most recent batched of Dean Street, Anchor Hook and Everlasting Echoes to try our most hop saturated beers to date.
Riverlands IV Imperial Stout
“Our Riverlands IV anniversary stout is definitely one of my favorite non-adjunct stouts that we’ve produced. This year’s beer sat peacefully for 18 months in Elijah Craig bourbon barrels. This was our first time working with barrels from this distillery and thankfully it won’t be the last. “
On the lager side, we’ve recently switched our house lager yeast to a strain we feel added just a little something to our beers in this category, doing a bit more to support the hops and malt. Try out the recent batches of Kayak Pils and our dark lager, Midnight Silence to see what I mean.
For those who frequent our taproom, you may have noticed a couple of beers, that for the first time ever, never seem to leave our menu board. Kayak Pils and Dean Street IPA are two of my favorite beers we make, and are two that our community has enthusiastically supported. I can’t think of two better beers for us to plant our flag on. If there are any instances that you don’t see these beers either on tap at our brewery or in cans out in the wild, rest assured that a fresh batch is just around the corner.
Lastly, I couldn’t be more excited for this year in our barrel program. After the anniversary party, expect a year of regular barrel aged releases that will top anything we’ve done before. We’ve got some of our favorites returning, some awesome collab stouts, and some barrels containing the best non-adjunct base stouts we’ve ever made. We’ll also base releasing the first in our Tranquil Reserve series, where we get to play with some truly special barrels. Stay tuned for details on these releases in the coming months.
Thank you all so much for another year of supporting us and helping us build such a wonderful community of beer enthusiasts. It’s always such a humbling experience peering off the brew deck and seeing the beer that we work so hard to create and serve being the companion to wonderful conversations and interactions between friends.
Cheers to Year Four being in the books, and I can’t wait to see what year five brings.
- Eric Bramwell, Head Brewer & Co-Founder