The XX Bitch Creek Double was released in 2008 as part of the Twentieth Anniversary for Grand Teton Brewing (www.grandtetonbrewing.com). The theme was to take three of their mainstream beers and one historical brew and turn them into Cellar Reserves by upping the Ante. Among the chosen was the XX Bitch Creek Double.
I love the regular Bitch Creek ESB (read about it here) I desperately wanted to try this but was resigned to the fact that I was never going to find a two year old, 20th anniversary, Cellar reserve beer!
How ever fate apparently loves me, as not one but two of these popped up!
The second I saw the XX Bitch Creek Double, I knew they meant business. With it’s beautiful foil label, flip top bottle…and the blue wax sealing the flip top firmly in place. Once before we’d decided to drink this beer but the daunting wax sealing made the Boy decide to wait for another day, so it got to age a bit longer. Finally the Boy sat down with a knife, a trash can and twenty minutes to spare working the beer free of it’s wax prison.
It seems fitting that it took twenty minutes for the Boy to get to the beer, as it took twenty years and Founder Charlie Otto setting up the first Microbrewery in Wyoming to bring this beer to my palate.
“Bitch Creek ESB was first brewed in 2003, and perfectly balances big malt sweetness and robust hop flavor for a full-bodied mahogany ale. It has quickly become our best-selling beer, as well as our most-critically acclaimed, having won medals-including two golds— at four out of the past five Great American Beer Festivals.
XX Bitch Creek Double ESB is all that and more. We took the Bitch Creek recipe and doubled everything: double the malt, double the hops, twice the flavor. This is a huge beer at 7.5% alcohol by volume, which should be paired with only the most flavorful of foods. Try it with the best steaks, game meats and hearty stews, or with a nice cave-aged Gouda.”
The regular Bitch Creek ESB has :
Malts: Idaho 2-Row Brewers, German Melanoidin, CaraAmber, CaraAroma & CaraMunich
International Bittering Units: 54
Hops: Galena, Chinook & Centennial, Dry hopped with Centennial
Now double that and the 6% ABV turns into a 7.5% ABV add two years in the bottle and I think it’s safe to say the ABV is 8-9% now.
I happened into the kitchen mid-pour and could definitely smell this bad boy. It poured a murky brown with a head that reminded me of meringue, it seemed to move independently from the rest of the beer.
This is exactly what I wanted and expected. A malty monster in my mouth. It’s pretty complex, there’s rich creamy caramel, something smokey, sweetened coffee, and burnt biscuitiness *. Before it has a chance to get too sweet the hops enter the picture with nicely balancing pine, grapefruit and florals.
Mouthfeel was medium with a bit of creaminess to it. I’m very glad I have another to cellar, I look forward to trying this again in a couple years.
P.S. That’s Sigmund, he lives on my couch.
*(I find myself frequently making up word variations for the sake of this blog)
That sounds awesome Amy! The Boy abides. We got an Alaskan 2008 Smoked porter that we will be drinking in a week or two. The regular ESB is great, it’s their Sweetgrass APA that is my favorite and should be fairly easy to find.