OMG OMG BROOKLYN BREWING “BLACK OPS”

Remember when I said that the $20 price point was my do-not-cross line with regard to purchasing beer? Well, it wasn’t a bottle of BROOKLYN BREWING ’s rarely-sighted BLACK OPS that got me over the threshold, but the promise of receiving one in the mail. I executed a big trade recently with a gentleman who shall remain nameless, and he told me it cost him twenty-four sawbucks to procure this one for me; I therefore felt the need to respond in kind, and purchased said gentleman a >$20 bottle of RUSSIAN RIVER TEMPTATION, a beer we just raved about on this here site last week. So that’s it. I’ve done it. I’ve broken the psychological and monetary barrier I said I wouldn’t, all so I could ingest a bottle of BROOKLYN BLACK OPS. Good thing it’s hands-down one of the best beers I’ve ever had.

BROOKLYN BLACK OPS is everything I’d hoped for, one of those beers residing in the upper/upper echelon of greatness that every beer dork like myself is continually hunting for. From the first sip it was obviously to me & Barleypress, whom I shared this with, that this was something special. We were even bragging that this was likely the only bottle within the city limits of San Francisco and its 800,000+ population. Now it's gone (sad face emoticon). BLACK OPS is a bourbon barrel-aged stout, clocking in at 10.7% alcohol. Somehow it’s apparently “re-fermented with champagne yeast” – maybe some of you know what that means. It has basically been refined and crafted to the point that it’s the smoothest, most delicious “imperial” beer I’ve had all year. Incredible thin, luscious mouthfeel – creamy even - with intense flavors of chocolate and roasted coffee. The foamy head on it looks and smells like whipped chocolate mousse. We were both just taken aback by the thing, and drank it with extreme reverence and respect. I suspect that this may be my last jaw-dropping beer of 2009 and therefore of this decade; it’s going to be very, very hard to top this one. 10/10.