For more about this brewery’s approach to big, barrel-aged imperial stouts, see Brewing and Blending Leviathans with Bluewood.
Bluewood was born out of the idea that everything would touch oak or have some special process involved. I started this with Grant Lodholz—both of us engineers—and we work backwards, creating the beers in terms of their intensity. That complexity was really what interested us. We’re constantly trying to entertain ourselves and push ourselves to the limit.
Our love for the imperial style is in that we’re both coffee freaks—we really do enjoy those roasty complexities—as well as just being whiskey drinkers.