When I wrote about Braxton’s next can, called Spotlight, the other day – I showed you the mystery image that had the white IPA featured in color, followed by two more cans and a large format bottle, all blacked out. Well, today the brewery announced their next can from the mystery image and it’s a doozy, with tons of loyal fans that have been clamoring for it’s packaged release since the day the first can rolled off the line at Braxton.
Dead Blow. Finally!
About The Style
Everyone knows the Foreign Extra Stout. It’s a a core style that I think most of us fell in love with early during our craft beer journies. The Tropical Stout, though? Well… it was one that before I first tried Dead Blow I didn’t even realize existed. Here’s what Braxton writes to describe what has become one of my favorite beers they brew:
Dead Blow is a Tropical version of the Foreign Extra Stout. Eighty pounds of macerated dates made its way into this brew, partnered with a Dry English Ale yeast to provide a vibrant fruity/tropical aroma with a slight amount of fruity esters. The Dry English ale yeast helps this beer attenuate lower, however leaving a residual sweetness on the finish as well as increase the fruity characteristic received from the Dates. Dead Blow is a dry, roasty, fruity, full bodied, smooth stout, that is lighter on bitterness.
This beer is fantastic. It’s a perfect example of how you can take a stout and turn it into something that is as at home during the cold winter months (which right now as snow is falling outside my window is right where we’re stuck) as it is in the hot, sticky summers that I love here in Cincinnati. This is such a fun beer.
About Dead Blow
This was a beer that Evan Rouse had been brewing for a while on his smaller scale homebrew setup, that proved to be one of the major challenges to bring over to Braxton. Scaling this up brought about a lot of fun issues on the bigger system – but they nailed it. Here’s what the brewery says about Dead Blow:
In the Midwest, there are certain things you can count on. Like hard work, hot summers, and the love a father feels for his family. We’re serious about these things here. That’s why our dad was never too busy to put down his hammer, sit with us on a red dusk night, and share a story or two. And we loved those times. The thing was, dad wore the years of patina on his face and knew it was just part of his job. So in honor of those dads, we call this deep tropical stout Dead Blow, to remind ourselves that hardness and goodness sometimes go together.
Dead Blow comes in at 7.2% ABV and 27 IBUs, and I can promise you, that if you still haven’t tried it, you really need to. This is something really great, and unlike anything else being made in Cincinnati. (UPDATE: If you’d like to read my tasting notes, you should do that!)
The Release
They are kicking this release off with the obligatory party in their taproom on January 28th (you can RSVP on Facebook, and share the event with your friends, here). The cans will make their way out to retailers that same week for your fridge stocking needs.
Some Speculation
First up is the design that this can has – it’s different. The can design looks a lot more in line with what they’ve been doing with their seasonal cans. Could we start seeing a change to Storm and the other core designs as well? All my instincts and sources say that we will. I’m also not sure that too many people will notice, it’s a change that still maintains all the stuff that I love about the current design, and just makes it fit a little better with the new stuff they’re doing.
More importantly with this release… we now have three of the four core beers that will be offered in cans. That only leaves Twisted Bit, as a core beer without a package. Will we finally get to see a Braxton lager in packaging for 2017? I know there are scores of people here in the city that agree with me when I beg to the beer gods to make it so.
It’s all exciting stuff, and don’t forget… it’s early 2017 and we still have two more packaged surprises from Braxton coming….