Beer Review: Azathoth (Edmund’s Oast Brewing Company)
First off, let me say – Happy Thanksgiving; from The Beer Thrillers family to yours. We hope you had a wonderful day with friends, family, and/or co-workers, that you had wonderful food, great conversations, and even better beer. That you remain grateful despite tomorrow being Black Friday, and that you continue to be thankful for what you have in life. We hope the day brought you much joy, merriment, and happiness.
Ok, now, lets get down to business.
Started off the day traveling to the in-laws for Thanksgiving there. Had a nice time, and a wonderful meal, though despite bringing my own craft beer, I was told to leave it in the car, and drank the Corona with them instead. (Ok, I can be sensible enough with in-laws to not fight them on this, enjoy the free beer, thank them for it, and enjoy my craft beer later.)
Afterwards, drove by Official BBQ and Burgers on the way home to see where its at, and realized its located really close-by. This is going to be the ‘future’ (future as in tomorrow) secondary location for Pizza Boy Brewing. In a joint fashion, they are opening a bar room up, and will be having Pizza Boy beers on exclusively. (So far as my understanding of things go.) They are due to go live tomorrow – Black Friday – 11.29.19 – and begin pouring the Pizza Boy beers from anywhere from 5-20 taps I’ve heard. I perhaps might be stopping in tomorrow to see what the news is, and to get the details.
I must say I am stoked to have a place with upwards of 20 taps exclusively for Pizza Boy so close (~10 minute drive). A ten minute drive versus roughly twenty to twenty-five minute drive, and also with a different set of food (BBQ and Burgers rather than pizza) so a bit of variety on the food and beer side of things in the nearby area, sounds fantastic. Sign me up.
After all this, I then went over to my sister’s for a wonderful traditional Thanksgiving meal with a flare of Mexico as well. Was very nice, interesting, and different. I brought along Azathoth to drink with the meal, and then while hanging out with friends and family I drank a Mango Guyabano sWheat Tart (that I still had apparently in my fridge) and then during the Spanish Loteria game, I had a Double Knife Fight in Space. (If you click the link, you can read J. Doncevic’s review of the Mango Guyabano sWheat Tart.)
So…. lets get to the beer, because you could care less about how I wracked it up playing Loteria with my sister and her family and her in-laws. And you want to hear about the beer.
I had gotten the Azathoth in a beer mail trade. It was a southern box from a trade I did – local for local – with a person on BeerAdvocate. I traded (as per typical of me, and anyone whose read previous blog posts would know this already) Boneshire Brew Works, Tattered Flag, Troegs Brewing, and Pizza Boy, and received Edmund’s Oast, Westbrook, Heist, Creature Comforts, Pretoria Field Collective, Fonta Flora, and Wild Leap. Not a bad trade if I may say so myself.
Beer: Azathoth
Brewery: Edmund’s Oast Brewing Company
Style: Stout – Imperial / Double
ABV: 11.5%
IBU: None
Untappd Write-Up: Notes of fresh coffee & bakers chocolate
I started with the stout figuring it’d go with the meal the best, and I certainly think it achieved that and then some.
Appearance is very black, dark deep stout black. With a very good brown head to it, creamy looking, thick, it left good lacing, and had nice bubbles that were disperse, random, and various sizes.
Aroma is slightly coffee, heavy roasted malts, with some deep dark chocolate notes. There is certainly a ‘baking chocolate’ aroma that mixes in with the roasted malts, and the coffee peeks out around these notes. Its not a super aromatic beer, but when you inhale deeply you can get the separate and distinct notes.
Taste is very full stout heavy flavorful. The 11.5% ABV is very well hidden. You know its there with how deep and dark and heavy the mouthfeel and stout tastes and feels, but the actual booziness of 11.5% is hidden. There is no alcoholic bite. There is a distinct bitterness in a two-pronged way; one being the coffee notes, the other being the baking chocolate. Both give off distinct, separate, but not bad, bitter flavoring notes and tastes. They combine nicely for a well defined beer. One that paired very well with turkey, mashed potatoes, and all of the other Thanksgiving traditional food – as well as tomalies, and jalapeno poppers, and pigs in a blanket (which was supposed to be for the kids…. but I yoinked a few).
My Untappd Rating: ****.25
Global Untappd Rating: 4.01 (as of 11.28.19)
Hope you all had a good Thanksgiving, and see you back here tomorrow for a Black Friday post. Maybe I’ll even get into anything. I know I won’t be going crazy trying to get the latest Goose Island Bourbon County bottles, but who knows, maybe I’ll get into something else for the day? Maybe check out the new Pizza Boy location? Who knows, check in here to find out! Or stay posted to our Facebook and Twitter feeds to find out!
-B. Kline
