In the interest of science (ha!), I figure I might as well post some notes on beers I pull out of my “cellar” to sample. Even though some of them (like this one) you’ll have a tough time buying anywhere for any price. You can always try to trade for rare beers on Ratebeer.com or Beeradvocate.com.

Hair of the Dog Matt was a special release for Bottlework’s tenth anniversary celebration in February of this year. Here is the original brief description of the beer:

To create Matt, HotD Brewer/Owner Alan Sprints took his Adam and blended a combination that was aged in both apple eau-de-vie and 33 year-old bourbon casks for a year. Sprints says “Matt is deep and lush with notes of apple, chocolate and smoke.”

Here are my original notes from tasting it when it was released:

On tap at Brouwer’s. Medium/dark brown with thin head. Big dark chocolate aroma. Deep mix of smoke, thick molasses, chocolate, tobacco and some sharp fruit. Pretty big bitter finish. A little alcohol burn, but not even close to being too much. Moderate thickness. Just a fantastic blend, and the barrels add just enough. Cheers to Alan and the 2 Matts for kicking some serious ass with this one.

We’re now eight months past the release, and it seemed like a good time to break one open and do a little quality control. This 11.5% ABV beer is still in stellar form. All of the original flavors are still there and don’t seem to have changed much. If anything, the chocolate flavors may stick out even more. The bitterness has smoothed out a little, and there is still a kick of booze with a little burn. It seems as though this beer could age for several more years.

If you’re looking to get some of this, Brouwer’s might have some for sale for consumption at the pub (someone told me that, but I have not verified it). I would also expect to see some for sale at Bottleworks next anniversary sale in early 2010.