Narcissist by O'so Brewing of Plover.
For good reason, the bourbon barrel stout is the apex predator of the craft beer world. It’s rich and bold, at once complex and utterly unsubtle.
Every brewery knows the cachet these dark dandies have with beer geeks, and many breweries make them. Nearly all are pretty good — the combination of stout’s chocolate-coffee-dark-fruit and bourbon’s oaky vanilla just works — but remarkably few are great.
A new barrel-aged stout from O’so Brewing of Plover just joined that latter group.
This should-be hit, called Narcissist, comes just ahead of a major turning point for O’so. Owners Marc and Katina Buttera have been working to open a new brewery for years, with one setback after another delaying or scuttling plans. Marc Buttera once told me hoped to break ground in 2016 on a new brewery and taproom. That was in 2014.
Six-plus years later, Buttera is almost to the finish line on that project, plowing right through a pandemic that might be the biggest disruption to the beer business since Prohibition. He believes the new brewery can open by April if regulatory hurdles are cleared in time. It’ll occupy a 30,000-square-foot former Shopko store (the Butteras kept the two O’s and the S from the sign), combining under one roof the homebrew shop that gave rise to O’so, the production brewery, a taproom, event space and a barrel-aging area.
The latter is where O’so has invested heavily, to produce both a wide range of barrel-fermented wild and sour ales and spirit barrel-aged beers like Narcissist.
To be honest, the last time I invested a bunch of dollars in a dark barrel-aged O’so beer, I got burned. I wrote a glowing review of the barrel-aged Imperial Night Train variants poured on draft and sold in bottles at O’so’s seventh-anniversary party in 2014. The draft versions were very good, but the haul of bottles I took home was woefully undercarbonated or, worse, infected with off flavors that sent them right to the drain.
That episode and the way O’so handled it has caused some beer geeks — many of whom drove to Central Wisconsin from Madison, Milwaukee or Chicago for the event — to sour on O’so permanently. Or at least for the six-plus years since.
For what it’s worth, the 2014 debacle was a moment of soul-searching for O’so as well. Buttera finally installed a lab this summer, and O’so’s quality control efforts are highlighted on its Facebook page, along with advice on what to do if a problem is found.
If the minds of the people who swore off O’so can still be changed at all, Narcissist is the beer that will do it.
It’s a big, burly, barrel-forward beer with twin variants aged in different barrels from prestige whiskey distillers, Templeton Rye and Willett bourbon. The beer’s name is paired with a clever mirror-like can design that allows you to be on the label, just like you’ve always known you would be someday.
Enough chatter. Pitter patter, let’s get at ’er.
Narcissist
Style: Whiskey barrel imperial stout
Brewed by: O’so Brewing, which will open at 1800 Plover Road, Plover, sometime this spring.
What it’s like: As I sip Narcissist (mainly the bourbon barrel version), I think of Oskar Blues Barrel-Aged Ten Fidy and Lakefront Black Friday as they are similar both in character and, yes, in quality.
Where, how much: Barrel-aged beers are often very limited, so get after this one quickly, and it might be worth a call ahead to your local indie bottle shop. Narcissist four-packs were also available midweek at O’so’s Madhouse taproom at 1817 E. Washington Ave. Expect to pay about $14-$15, a good price for a barrel-aged beer.
Booze factor: The Narcissists are sippers for a few reasons, one of them being their 10.5% ABV. Beer writers like to call that “warming.”
Up close: This beer started with a base brew slightly tweaked from O’so’s Liquid Soul imperial stout, but Narcissist is really all about those barrels.
Both versions are intensely spirit-forward in different ways. The bourbon version opens with a sledgehammer of whiskey character on the nose, pretty much a snifter of Willett, neat. A sip brings semisweet chocolate with low roast character on the front, a smooth, balanced middle and a little bit of molasses and spicy spirit kick on the long finish.
The rye variant has a somewhat more subdued spirit aroma but kicks up the barrel character in the flavor, with the spicy, almost cinnamon-like rye character accentuating the chocolate-molasses character throughout the sip. It might be the yin-yang aspect of the rye playing here, but this version seemed slightly sweeter on my palate.
No matter which version you’re drinking, take your time and let it warm up to let the complexities emerge; these beers drink better at room temperature than straight from the fridge, but somewhere in the middle is the sweet spot. Both versions are creamy, viscous and intensely satisfying on a winter’s night. And if, like me, you believe Narcissist is truly an O’so redemption story, go ahead and put an extra four-pack away for summer and fall nights as well.
Bottom line: 4½ stars (out of 5)
Beer Baron’s Beers of the Year 2020: Worst Year Ever Edition
Let’s take inventory of the most unforgettable, symbolic and just downright delicious beers of 2020.
This was not the best new beer Madison’s Ale Asylum released this year, but it was unquestionably the most successful, and it’s obvious why without even cracking open the can. This beer’s label perfectly captured the zeitgeist at the time of its release in early April, and it never really stopped resonating. The pilsner was followed by a hazy pale ale version, and both were taken national by the new Wisconsin-based distributor Brew Pipeline. Locally, the brewery has offered the FVCK COVID duo and many of its other beers for $6 a six-pack for most of the year. By the way, my favorite new Ale Asylum beer also had a “ugh, 2020” theme: MRDR HRNT, the first in a new “Apocalypse Bingo” series. It’s a pale ale heavily dosed with Mosaic, Denali and Trident hops that create an intense, nearly hard seltzer-like lemongrass-lime character.
This is not one but 25 beers, a different one from each of the Wisconsin breweries that committed to this worldwide collaboration started by San Antonio’s Weathered Souls Brewing. Most of the beers were imperial stouts, but the Black Is Beautiful black IPA (remember that style?) from community-focused Delta Beer Lab might have been my favorite of those I tried. The other participating Madison-area breweries were Herbiery, Giant Jones, Parched Eagle, Rockhound, Sunshine and Young Blood. Black Is Beautiful was, of course, a response to the other story that defined 2020: our national awakening on racial justice. The 1,192 breweries that took part pledged to donate proceeds to local foundations that support police reform and legal defense for those who have been wronged by police, and also committed “to the long-term work of equality.” I am happy to drink to that.
Yes, there are plenty of beers on this list that are not a statement on times like these. And Untitled Art’s take on the legendary Chocolate Shoppe ice cream flavor was probably my favorite of them. Loaded with lactose for sweetness and creaminess, and cocoa nibs and dark malts for chocolate character, it was not just a beer that tasted like chocolate ice cream but specifically like Zanzibar. It was sweet but not overly so, and the chocolate had dark depths and the fruity complexity of its namesake.
Young Blood Beer Co. picked a heck of a year to debut. The plan was to pack the taproom on King Street and pour glass after glass of head brewer Kyle Gregorash’s IPAs, saisons, lagers and pastry stouts. The opening went ahead in May, with a quick pivot toward canning the bulk of the beer, though the sidewalk patio did brisk business, too. Young Blood’s M.O. is to crank ’em; its Untappd page records 117 different beers already. And while this is really a nod for the entire brewery over a single beer, I don’t think any Young Blood I had this year surpassed the mostly by-the-book but excellent saison Cheryl’s 2004 Cobalt. I’m looking forward to seeing more of the colorful cans in my fridge — and what they come up with next for beer names — in 2021.
The label of color fields and geometric shapes was almost as adorable as this beer’s diminutive pop culture namesake, but the beer inside was the real force. Released for Third Space Brewing’s fourth anniversary in September, this kinda-hazy session IPA packed bright citrus and stonefruit flavors and a satisfying body despite its wee 3.9% ABV. Baby Yo capped a great year of new hoppy beers, with kveik yeast stars Nordic Sunrise and Fjord Explorer strong BOTY contenders as well.
If you’re the most successful craft brewery in Wisconsin and you’re going to release only one new beer in a year, it had better be a banger. And this complex, enigmatic sipper sure was. A blend of three batches of spontaneously fermented ale from New Glarus’ “wild fruit cave,” it incorporated Geisenheim grapes after blending to put an unmistakable spin on brewmaster Dan Carey’s familiar fruit lambics. This sweet creation was aptly named, with a floral, intensely fruity profile of apricot, white grape and honey that really did evoke a butterfly’s sip.
Oktoberfests get all the love every year, but a great Vienna lager can scratch that toasty-malty itch year-round. For that reason, I didn’t love that this beer from Lakefront Brewery’s My Turn series came out in fall when shelves were already loaded with beers with a similar profile. But it was still a standout: bready and flavorful but clean and balanced. Wisconsin brewers, let’s be like Lakefront warehouse employee Johnny Hopgood (his real name, a true aptonym) and make some more Vienna lagers, please!
Yes, the bow on top of my 2020 Beers of the Year is a 117-year-old American light lager that you can find literally everywhere. I wrote a column in May revealing the Champagne of Beers as my “comfort beer,” a rock of palate certainty to balance the uncertainty in the world. But as the year marched on, I realized there was another factor bringing me back to High Life. On Feb. 26, a Molson Coors electrician killed five co-workers and himself at the Miller Valley brewery in Milwaukee. I feel a kinship with this beer for many reasons but the one I thought about often while buying yet another 12-pack this year was a solemn solidarity with the survivors of that day and the loved ones of the fallen: Dale Hudson, Gennady "Gene" Levshetz, Jesus “Jesse” Valle Jr., Dana Walk and Trevor Wetselaar.
Got a beer you’d like the Beer Baron to pop the cap on? Contact Chris Drosner at chrisdrosner@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter @WIbeerbaron.
