Every year it’s pretty fascinating to sit back and watch how Braxton Brewing Company will attempt to one-up themselves with their new Dark Charge release. Previous years have blown me away, and I had a hard time believing that they’d be able to compete with themselves for the 5 year anniversary. I am happy to tell you that they have blown me away with 2019 Dark Charge just as they promised they would!
Before we dive into the 2019 Dark Charge variants, we should make sure that we’re on the same page about everything. Dark Charge day… it’s a holiday in Cincinnati. If you aren’t familiar with what goes on in Covington on the first Saturday of December each year – you’ll wanna head over and read a little bit to get up to speed. I’ll wait.
Ok – now that that’s out of the way we can dive in headfirst!
Bourbon Barrel Aged
On the surface, it’s easy to ignore the barrel-aged Dark Charge base beer. It’s the one constant bottle that’s always been released, and it’s the ground that all the variants are built upon.
That doesn’t mean that this isn’t a beer to be talked about… it’s fantastic. You can’t build a whole release around a mediocre beer, and Braxton has a real winner on their hands with this one.
The beer is big, toasty, chocolatey and to say the lease, delicious. It’s an imperial stout that will warm you up from the inside out. This liquid is easily one of my favorite things being made in our city currently.
Maple Breakfast
This is a fun one, and a new one. Every year, the brewery lets their club of Kickstarter backers that they call “the Braxton Builders” vote on a variant to be produced. That’s where this one comes in this year.
The brewery took dark charge and loaded it up with Maple, Coffee, Cocoa, and Vanilla to create a breakfast stout that will hopefully embarrass a lot of ‘big beer’ versions of the style that everyone raves about. I’m really, really excited to try this one! I’ll have to let you know what I think!
Mole
The beer that won best of show at the Alltech Commonwealth Cup – I’m sure you’ve tried this one before, but it’s always one of my examples of the best that this beer offers as far as variant bottles go. It nails it fresh and only improves with a year or two in the cellar. The beer first debuted in 2016 and has been such a hit that it’s made a return every year since. Ancho Chiles, Cinnamon, Cocoa Nibs, Vanilla… yeah… it’s fantastic.
Luxardo
This year’s Braxton Labs variant is a new one, and it sounds like a winner. Designed to incorporate the flavors of a classic cocktail – the Old Fashioned – I can already tell you that I’m going to like this!
This is the first time that the Braxton Labs variant has made it into the bigger 22oz bottles like the other variants, which means we’ll have a little bit more to enjoy this year too!
The beer wraps up so much Luxardo Cherries and citrus that from what I understand, the brewery used up the entire east coast’s supply of Luxardo Cherries for a while.
Cakebox – German Chocolate Cake
Bringing together Cocoa Nibs, Coconut, Almonds, and Vanilla beans, this is the first of three variants that make up ‘The Cake Box’ a trio of pastry stouts to celebrate the fifth anniversary of Dark Charge in style.
It seems like the perfect dessert to pair up with a beer like Dark Charge!
Cakebox – White Chocolate Raspberry
The second addition to the Cakebox, white chocolate raspberry uses more than one and a half pounds per gallon of fresh Oregon Raspberries to referment the already delicious base beer. Next, it sees some time on more than 12lbs of fresh Madagascar vanilla beans and cocoa nibs to tie the profile together.
Cakebox – Bananas Foster
As Dark Charge leaves its barrel slumber, it’s brought on top of more than 2lbs per gallon of freshly pureed bananas where it’s allowed to referment. It next hits some vanilla beans and cinnamon to finish it’s transformation into a bananas foster dessert in a bottle.
I wasn’t sure how I’d feel about this one, but after getting a sneak peek taste of it during the Braxton Builder’s preview event – I’m sold… 100%. This is a great beer!
Cognac Ex-Bourbon
This bottle is the contribution of Braxton’s new Barrel House facility in Ft. Mitchell. It started its life as the base beer which headed into some really special barrels. The barrels started out aging Kentucky bourbon for more than 7 years before they were filled with French Cognac.
When you taste the beer you can get the parts of Dark Charge you expect, but behind it all is a really great grapey, stonefruit acidic touch that lingers quietly.
This is a really special addition to wrap up another year of amazing additions to the Dark Charge family! For more details on Dark Charge Day, and the beers, you can always head over to Braxton’s website dedicated just to Dark Charge Day and all it brings!