Sadako Imperial Stout

Back in July 2014 we released the dark, rich monster that is Sadako: our first imperial stout, onto the world. The beer was originally held back at the brewery for just under 4 months, as we never want to release a beer that we don't believe is ready. We were small and naive back then, and in hindsight feel we let her out into the wild a little early. We had simply run out of room at the brewery and we got a tad bored of moving the pallet around each day. The beer tasted good so we thought we would release it. It generally went down well, but it soon became very clear that it was still improving as it got older. By the time it had sold out, and there were very few bottles still ingaround, it was tasting fantastic!

The next batch was brewed in early September 2014 and packaged in October. Since then, we have acquired ourselves more warehouse space, where we can stick a pallet in a dark quiet corner and forget about it. For the last 6 months, batch 2 of Sadako has been lurking in the depths of the Weird Beard warehouse, watching, waiting for its chance to make a bid for freedom. Now the time has come, the video has been watched, the phone has rung and Sadako will climb out of her box. Are we getting all of these Ring references?

Sadako currently appears on our brew schedule at least 3 times a year. You can tell when we brew it as another of our favourites, Dark Hopfler, comes out of the same brew day. But we will be pre-ageing each batch of Sadako for at least 6 months before pulling it out, waxing, and releasing it. Even if only to make sure we are presenting head brewer Bryan's favourite beer at its best. It has been a long wait between batch 1 and 2, but we hope you find it has been worthwhile. Infact you can rest easy knowing that in that dark corner of the warehouse, there is yet more Sadako waiting for its time to come and get you.

A portion of each batch also goes into barrels. There is no pre-determined time scale on these; when we decide they are ready, they are ready. So you can look forward to seeing Heaven Hill, Jack Daniel's, Jim Beam, Red Wine and Tequila barrel aged versions of our flagship imperial stout coming your way at some point. We may even redo the Ardbeg aged version, but I wouldn't hold my breath....