Forever Darkness
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Gabe and I have been friends for more than 10 years now. Over the years we have found that we share a mutual admiration for the huge malty beers we each brew and age, and more than 2 years ago, we finally had Gabe here to Missouri to put together a beer which would become Forever Darkness. After conducting our first Triple-Barrel-Aged project, I am honored to place our name on this beer along with his.
Forever Darkness is a riff on the name for which Gabe used for our collaboration there, King of Darkness, however, the collaboration recipe and processes are unique to this beer here. We wrote a recipe here, used his primary yeast strain and then planned to triple-barrel-age from the start. We pushed our processes and knowledge during the more than 2 years of residence in oak and 3 barrel moves to make sure that this beer continued to represent a Side Project stout; firmly rooted with flavors or baker's chocolates, toasted coconut, roasted coffee, and of course a strong presence of bourbon and rye from our favorite distillery - Willett.
Different than the triple-barrel-aged M.J.K., a barleywine where oxidation in the form of candied fruit and caramel candies is celebrated, in Forever Darkness we diligently worked to exclude those profiles, keeping the stout shining and the barrel (it is triple-barrel-aged) in the forefront. The result is this 19% ABV monster of a stout that finds its layers, yet keeps the mouthfeel and signature decadence you expect from a Side Project Barrel-Aged Stout.
After aging in Willett Rye and Bourbon barrels 3 times, we netted just over 60% of the initial volume brewed. This evaporation and thus concentration of flavors and layers makes the 19% ABV crazy sneaky. I am honored to share this collaboration with you and hope you enjoy the years it required to develop this stout into what it is today. From the entire Side Project team, thank you all for your continued love of our beers...
Packages of Forever Darkness will go on sale in our store - https://www.sideprojectbrewing.com/collections/beer - on Tuesday, April 5th, at 10am CST. Proxies are allowed and the packages can be picked up starting Saturday, April 9th at our Brewery location only. Thank you for your time, for reading this, and for your love of our barrel-aged beers.