Surprisngly simple for a Deschutes barrel-aged beer - but maybe that's just in comparison to the Baptista. I t's somewhat thin in mouthfeel with a sweet but not syrupy liquor-forward flavor. Some high-key bitterness in the finish.

At once candy-bar sweet and profoundly complicated in the usual manner of The Abyss, which is an aspect I don't usually enjoy. In particular the woody, inky, tobacco-like finish is not very harmonized with the opening sweetness.

Really smooth, you can tell there was roast but the edge is definitely taken off. Nice rum flavor, don’t know if the wood comes from the rum or the cherry bark here.

So complex… one of the early rum aged stouts right? There’s something strange about rum aging, where you’d expect a sweetness but i actually find it brings out the wood more than whiskey barrel aging.

Really quite good.

Thin and cola-like, down to the flavor, which is effervescent and tangier than I expected. Hints of nutmeg or cinnamon and maybe cardamom. At no point during this glass did I come close to thinking "baklava."

Straightforward tart like to start, moving to buttery diacetyl notes and an herbal bitterness. Chili adds a faint but gradually building heat to the aftertaste.

Roast, slightly sour Porter with strong burnt toffee and chocolate notes. Finishes fairly boozy.

Thick and syrupy with a strong scent of brown sugar. Rich esters and a moderately sour finish. A bit much to take, honestly.

A dark belgian, caramel and figs. Quite boozy but with a very enjoyable flavor; it's more of a straight alcohol character rather than the bourbon in the description, which was ... not really detectable to me. With some aging this should be superb.

Very nice at first, plummy/pruney with a sharp but brief sourness and fading into quite a funky finish. The funk built up in bitterness through the glass, though; I'd say two-thirds of the goblet was great and the last bit ... took a while.

Whiskey forward, inky black porter with quite a lot of bitter roast. The bitterness builds up strongly over time.

Lots of bourbon sweetness up front, with a bit of prickle from cinnamon but not overt flavor. Not too much to say that I didn't say last time.

A light, pleasant dark lager with a bit of chocolate, a bit of roast, and a bit of coffee. Creamy and clean.

Seved super-cold as they do here at Prime, so that there were actual ice crystals in the beer. Worked surprisingly well with this beer, bringing out the mellow chocolate notes.

UGH I SHOULD HAVE TAKEN NOTES. This was very delicious though.

Missed logging this at the time and it's way in the past. I do remember liking this very much and that the fig was quite striking.

Very good cherry kriek. Definitely super-funky, but good.

Least sour Berliner Weisse I've ever had. All wheat funk, no sour, light grape. It's actually really quite good.

Somewhere between a CDA and a Belgian dubbel. Hoppy and fruity with plenty of caramel.

Cleaner, more straightforward porter. Light, hoppy finish.

Brut but with a funky curl. Maybe a little too juicy? Grapey, bitter, bubbly, resin.

Slightly fruity in front. Malty/uric finish, medium smooth.

Dark, roasty but creamy. Would have pegged as a porter but it has a bit of lactic finish. Slightly reminiscent of sesame candy.

So weird, this smells of sweet vanilla, hits you with a ton of sharp acid, and then end with a bit of almond cookie, smooth and sweet. The vanilla is a touch perfumey. Ok, but weird.

Maybe my least favorite Hazy IPA yet. Typical opening grapefruit flavors, but very quickly goes very bitter and pithy.

Very hoppy porter, round spicy underneath the burnt caramel Porter flavor. Unpleasant

Same creamsicle flavors as the previous beer, but on a sweet Belgian base

Sweet, creamsicle like with clean round orange notes. A tiny bit fake tasting

Mild Lager, Smoky, Scotch like overtones

Lightly tart, good sweet wheaty cereal. Lots of pear and not much bergamot, I think, but really tasty!

At first I thought this was the best one, although with some more distance between the beers the tequila is a little wooly here. Wooly in a good way for sure! But some moods might prefer the straightforwardness of the Scotch version.

Directly after the brandy version this was a bit dry and a lot bitter, but with more separation this really grew on me. I think this may have been the best one in the end.

Fruity, sweet and very smooth. Really, really tasty. It may not have ended up at the top of the flight, but there's no way to really fault this beer.

The Small Lebowski is in it to win it! Oh, the beer? It's tastes like a moderately hopped Vienna lager? Lots of caramel, a bit of wet hay. I'd probably take it over a Sam Adams.

This year's Black Butte anniversary used cocoa and cinnamon as the main flavor notes, which was a great idea. On the sweet side but of all the anniversary Black Buttes I've tried this was the best tasted young, by far. Not too poky on the new flavors, but enough to offset the strong alcohol and flavor. Really appreciated not having any sour or fruity undertones this year, too.

The fruit has taken over this beer with age, with a dry tartness that is interesting but doesn't serve the beer as well when the Porter components have smoothed out. Suffers next to the XXIX.

Sweet wheat funk, plenty of lime. Moderate tequila notes but not boozy. Finish isn't as smooth as other tequila-lime sours I've had (this seems to be an "in" combination). Can't argue with the name, though, it's a winner. Salt might actually have been lost, though, since it didn't really come through.

Plummy, sour funk. Brown sugar and light clove notes. Reminds me of something that's trying to get to a Flanders sour but kind of peters out into an off fruit flavor rather than something truly complex. Disappointing - hope the Planete Bruin bottle I got does this better.

Fresh Deschutes hop flavor with a slightly tart passion fruit juice flavor. Dry resin appears in the middle. Light, almost weak finish.

This release is getting aged enough to be pretty good. Wine notes come out pretty clearly. Still very roasty and strong.

Very smoky, with a malt sweetness that brings to mind an amber rauchbier lager; there is sourness that follows but the combination of all three flavors means the sour finish isn't clean. Like the Liquid Double Fudge, the finish is tacky and sticks in the throat. The first pub series limited bottle that's disappointed me (but it was also the cheapest, thankfully).

A yearly tradition, trying this beer when it's far too young. Strong, umami chocolate roast with fruity, round red wine notes around the edges. Needs quite a bit of smoothening, but you can see how this could get (much) better.

I liked this on CO2, but on cask this suffers quite a bit. A lot of the same pungency as the Hop Slice, but thankfully without the bubblegum. Still, I didn't enjoy it, and I didn't finish it.

Haven't had the CO2 version of this, but I did not enjoy this on cask at all. Flat, the bubblegum bits poke out strongly and the hop resin is very, very pungent. Like sweat. Bubblegum and sweat. These two flavors do not meld well together.

Apple-like notes, and some tannic dryness. Slightly buttery. A little bit spiky in unusual places, flavor-wise, but an interesting profile.

Seems like the same yeast base as the Mountains of the Moon, but with more plum and caramel notes on top. It smooths out the flavor, which is different but nice. I didn't detect any ginger or cinnamon at all, which is kind of like its one job?

More like a straight Belgian pale than funky farmhouse. Spicy-smoky banana-clove yeast notes, clean-ish finish. Memory tells me this is in the Dupont mode of saison.

They say they didn't use any actual peach in this, and the flavor is only vaguely suggestive. Sweet cereal finish. A little too bubblegum sweet but tasty. Slightly metallic finish.

Caramel, licorice, some rootiness in the flavor. I do like this carbonated on draft more than I like it on nitro.

Moderately sour taste, weak body

Toffee and light plum Barleywine. Light funk. Sweet aftertaste.

Dry, thinnish stout with a pretty good rye whiskey flavor. Not as over-wooded as other Deschutes beers, making this go down pretty easy, although over time it did taste progressively more sour and less smooth. Pretty darned good, though.

Seems milder than last time. Not much pine, but otherwise the same sort of character .

Plum and toffee, thickish, cloudy ale. The flavors are good and complex if not super-refined. Pretty tasty!

Tart lime and wine funk are the dominant flavors here, with a building finish of lime peel. This doesn't exactly scream pilsner, although there is some cereal in the aftertaste. Best comparison I can really make is to dry-hopped sours like Breakside's La Tormenta (which I really enjoyed!).

A caramel dark porter with a slightly buttery, malty finish and strong but well-integrated whiskey notes. The finish is a bit overly woody in the way that Deschutes tends to favor; it built up a bit strongly over time.

Sweet, molassesy plum smell telegraphs quad, but the flavor was much less sweet and more than a little bitter. You could tell from the Jubelale in this, but with a large amount of funk on top. Really astringent woody dryness. Not much of a fan.

Sweet, candi sugar, some plum and a medium tart, malt-sweet sourness with a bitter funk in the background. Perfectly decent but not super-memorable.

A little too sour for me

Ack. I think I'm giving up on "young" Abyss for a while. This was strongly alcoholic and complex in a variety of directions that all led to bitter. These beers age for the better, but this wasn't there.

This beer is always better aged, and moreso on draft. Very smooth but very boozy. Roast coffee with hints of cherry or blackcurrant on the finish.

The first beer of the flight with funk. I liked this more than I usually do: caramel and toast. Finishes bitter.

Lemony and slightly tart; the flavors are richer on cask but resin is more prominent on the tongue. I think I like this one better carbonated.

Lemon bubblegum, a bit of pine. Super smooth and almost milky-sweet. Is there lactose sugar involved here? The finish is slightly bitter but builds over time.

Holy sage! The herbal flavor complements but builds on resin. This all leads to a big bitter finish which was hard to take.

My favorite of the flight! Fruity marzen opening leads into a light, grapefruity IPA flavor. Slight bubblegum (I think this is probably characteristic of Deschutes' hop profile). Slightly vinous finish with no bitterness. Delish!

White apple & malt, sits nicely in-between the Red Chair and Das-Schutz in flavor. Grassy finish. This was also yummy!

Caramel, malty ale. After the hop fests of the previous few beers, this was welcome.

Strong resinous flavors with mild bitterness. A little sweet too.

Lemondrop hops give this a syrupy lemon Pledge flavor that is hard to ignore. There is an interestingly buttery finish that is the one thing that saves this. It's not love, but I liked this more than others seemed to.

Has an offensive smell but the hops flavors are nice and fresh.

Caramel, molasses, dark fruit and boozy flavors.

Dark dried fruits flavors.

Very fruity, dark fruits, a little bit syrupy.

Really nice Oktoberfest flavors, with lots of toasty malt, but with a mushy hint of fruit - apricot, maybe? - kind of preventing this from being as clean a flavor as I like.

On the syrupy side for a doppelbock. Too sweet and pungent for me to enjoy.

Smooth, lightly fruity aromas. Has a nice tart fruit flavor which is very interesting with the porter flavors. Finishes with light roasted flavors.

This has aged, so it's hard to tell what it was like young, but my impression is that this is a lot smoother than other anniversary Black Buttes I've had. Thinner too, in body and flavor, making the cranberry and pomegranate tartness and fruitiness a lot more prominent. In fact, I'd call this a fruit beer first (though a profound one), and dark beer second. Other notes: mild chocolate, not too sweet.

Very subtle pine notes, but nothing of note. Wish it had more hop to it.

The only positive thing is that the label has a depiction of Smith Rock... But the beer was kinda not super.

Good stout nice roasyiness weird booziness

Like the 2013, but more woody, and all that implies.

I had to try this when I saw it on the tap list, but I hate to say it may have aged too long. There's a real, flat boozy flavor through which you get a bit of stonefruit syrup - and not much else. What complexity and balance used to be here was long gone.

Not sure I could tell this was cask. Piney, hoppy IPA with a surprising, pleasant sweet cereal malt body (much like the River Ale), but ends with a strong, pithy bitterness. Frankly, this was much nicer than I expected.

Light, piney ale with a sweet, bubblegum-tinged cereal malt body that continues on through the aftertaste. This was very drinkable, although maybe too sweet. Thankfully, it wasn't syrupy.

A rather tasty pilsner, not too sweet, with a shot of piney hop syrup. That last can seem a bit tacked on, but it doesn't prevent this from being quite enjoyable.

Herbal, thyme-y kick on top of a rather resinous amber ale. I like herbal beers but I find that they don't work for me when the base beer is a hopfest. This one I didn't finish.

Creamy, somewhat bland pale that goes down really easily but also has a bit of that sweet nitro chemical-ish flavor to me. Piney-apple flavors and sweet cereal.

A significant step down from the 2010. The flavors are less smoothed out, and the finish is almost ashy. On its own, it might have done much better, but context was not kind.

Best of the bunch - very similar to the 2009 but with a pleasant vinous tang added to it. This might be the only Abyss where I actually could detect the wine barreling. I don't know if the finish was any less woody, but it felt less bitter.

Very smooth, very woody.

Floral hop opening with a mild, toasty cereal finish. Though named as a pale ale, this is basically a prototypical northwest red ale, and not of the IPA-in-disguise variety.

A surprise from Widmer, here was a caramel-toffee amber with a lager-like sweet-bitter maltiness and smooth but obvious rye whiskey overtones. Like a less-sophisticated Sucaba, but still very much balanced. I wish I'd gotten more than the taster.

One of the best fresh hopped IPAs I've ever had.

Was told rather late that this was on the special tap, and I had to order it. I don't know if it's the age, or if I've gotten more used to funky sours, but I did enjoy this a lot more than I did the 2012. It's still not super-tart, with some mild, vinous funk and some evident booze. I think for sure this was the most interesting beer of the night, so I'm glad I found it.

Had to try this on nitro. The beer is expressed totally differently this way, with the wine notes and other sour flavors coming to the forefront. It's still rather opaquely roasty, although it doesn't come across as ashy as with CO2. Didn't sense much bourbon. The nitro does give this a bit of a weird, vegetal overtaste which prevented me from falling in love, but it made me wonder how this version would age.

This was just too bitter and I wasn't ready to do any more of that tonight. I'll have to try and give it a fair shake later.

I really wanted to like this beer because of the name, but it was really nondescript -- a kind of ambery amberness. Of the eight beers in this flight it had the least character. At least it wasn't actively unenjoyable.

Similar fragrance and hop profile to the Fresh Squeezed, which is nice, but rings hollow in the malt department. That leaves this beer tasting pretty much like pine cleaner. That's nice for a few sips but it gets boring, fast.

Belgian with a somewhat flat coriander flavor profile. Meh.

Taken straight, opens spicy with a rooty, forward bitterness that sits through to the finish. With food, it takes on a vinous character that is actually quite nice, but the totality of the flavor doesn't quite meld together.

Super-fragrant pine with a citrus sheen, and good cereal finish. This was the first I tried out of the flight, on purpose, and it was a good choice. I do feel like I've had this before, but I must have missed logging it?

An extremely dark stout, with a hint of red wine in the flavor and some roasty smoke. There is an extreme amount of dry wood flavor in this beer, which builds up in bitterness over time. Makes it hard to love, but (as usual with The Abyss) probably worth trying again after some aging.

Dark and roasty. Dangerously close to tasting burnt though.

While its labeled fresh hopped it retains more of the IPA flavor profile. Not a bad thing though!

Not the best pilsner. Still, its well made with a slight hint of sweetness.

Big roasted coffee smell, on the palate again big amounts of roasted malt, coffee and chocolate. The flavors taper out a bit towards the finish, which is unfortunate after how loudly it announces itself. Could have used a bit more bittering hop to clean up the finish.

Not a fan of sour ales, but this one was really well balanced.

I think it tasted good. It just didn't taste nearly as good as anything we had before it.

Liked it better than the Planète Rouge, but I still found the taste too sour and strong. The stong wine taste gives an interesting character to the beer.

Too sour for my taste, I wouldn't drink a lot of it.

A fresh tasting, hop-fragrant IPA with an unusual, bitter, cucumber-like after-aftertaste. I can't say I loved it, but it was unusual in a way that intrigued me.

An effervescent, mildly hoppy amber opens into wood, fruit, and funky wild yeast. Vinous rather than sour. It was near the end of a tasting, so I might be suspect, but it seemed like a younger, red cousin of the likes of Pour les Oiseaux.

A pleasant surprise given how much I disliked the Dissident. Moderately tart, fruity, and with a buttery hit of funky wild yeast, this shares the fruit pie characteristics I've generally liked best in sours.

Strong wine characteristics, it carries the Muscat really well, especially when paired with foie-gras. Stands up to old cheese too!

Reminds me of The Stoic. The wine and whiskey barrel flavors come through. A sipping beer.

A lot of what I said about the 2011 still holds true for this version. It's even more smoothed out, with vanilla being a dominant overtone, but not sweet at all. Smooth wood and coffee with faint tartness build up to become a little bit too much wood over the course of the glass. No noticeable spirit flavors.

A maltier IPA, hops are present but don't overpower.

Thick yet effervescent, with an undertone of pine IPA. It's actually an appealing combination.

It smells like an IPA mixed with a wheat beer. And it tastes pretty much the same. It's really not that bad.

Scent of pine. Tastes like a mild piney IPA.

Scent is faintly of rubbing alcohol. Not a promising start. It's almost like the center of the taste has been cored out with little hints of the flavor around the edge. Overall a kind of worrisome experience. I keep checking that I haven't lost my sight. Once you get past the watery rubbing alcohol, maybe it has a little bit of dark toasty flavor? Not recommended.

Sweet, malty and potent. At first it's a little harsh but definitely mellows out over time, with a lot of caramel and barrel flavor in every sip. There's a noticeable hoppy background that keeps things spicy.

Very good but a bit expensive. Less value than a Succaba for that price.

Red rum red rum red rum!!!!

... and then, a crash. There's a lot of funky yeast action going on in this beer, vinous and mushroom-like, but not with any of the (lucky?) elegance of, say, a Pour Les Oiseaux. If I've ever had a funky blue cheese of a beer, this was it.

Slightly tangy with a pronounced clovey spice profile and tons of round, mellow fruit and vapor character from the pomegranate & various barrels. Very, very pleasant.

Slight tangy smell. Mild cereal body with moderate sweetness. Whiskey smoke and acidic grape wine aftertaste.

Hoppy front side and smooth sweet finish.

Has pic of mountain on label. Must be good.

Starring Sigourney Weaver.

Getting better & better with age.

I bet it would've been better if it wasn't nitro. Still not bad tho.

Same spicy goodness I like in the hops, and more of a malt finish (very nice). A bit more bitterness too, though, so it balances out.

Moderate cereal smell and a bit of tart, almost like apple juice. Good spicy-like lingering bitterness, and a sort of juicy sweetness to the malt body.

I believe this was a well bodied (cerealed) pale ale with just minimal bitters.

Malty with some good caramel. A little too much bitterness and I already had a headache. Nitro was a nice change but I'm still not generally a fan of the flavor you get from it.