First things first: this is indeed an homage/tribute, considering the month that we’re in. So let’s respectfully get that out of the way.
So, we wanted to go big. We decided on 11% alcohol, and no mental (or physical) brakes when it came to adding adjuncts.
Double mash, so a bit more than 14 hours of work, long and tedious because we also added a lot of oat flakes (around 20% of the whole malt bill). Lots of roasted and crystal malts, that goes without saying.
The most important thing that we were looking for was getting a lot of rich, natural-feeling, tasty chocolate in the beer. Kinda like big guys at Voodoo or Cycle get without too much of a sweat. So we added 30 kilos of mildly roasted cocoa nibs. Which is A LOT for our capacity and soaks up a lot of beer in the fermentation tank.
Second on the list: vanilla. Which is now more expensive than ever, especially if you’re looking for the real deal. So we grabbed as much Madagascar vanilla beans as we could.
Lastly, Joe’s favourite daily fuel: strong dark coffee. Which, surprisingly, we didn’t use much of. We didn’t add cold brew this time, as we usually do with Chupacabra and Tonka Rush, but instead we coarsely crushed 3 kilos of fine Brazilian coffee beans from Camera din față, and just dumped it into the fermentation tank for about a day.
So, we ended up with quite a limited amount of Time. A lot of this dark potion was lost due to the additions, but it’s a sacrifice that we were willing to take.
As a consequence, it might seem to be as pricey as a fine wine, but we hope it certainly will feel that way, too. Try one now, one later, and so on and so on, and maybe keep one for next April 2019.
And cherish every moment in between.