Wednesday, January 23, 2008

What is Divine?


Twice a year for the past two years or so Saint Arnold's has released a special beer under the Divine Reserve Label. It started with a Barley Wine, and the last time was an absolutely incredible Russian Imperial Stout. I haven't had the pleasure of tasting all 5 Divine's, but I've had the last 4, and posted on the last 3.
It seems as soon as Brock and company release a Divine Reserve, we all start eagerly anticipating the announcement of when the next one will be released and what it will be. While I don't have an answer to the former, I may have found a hint to the answer on the latter question.
In the past Saint Arnold has used the Big Batch Brew Bash Homebrewing contest to get the recipe for their Divine Reserve. The BBBB is the largest single style home brewing competition in the country and is hosted by Saint Arnold's. They set the rules with a specific style, and then homebrewers brew their best version. With their permission SA has used the winner as the Divine Reserve. Pretty cool idea and both their RIS and Double IPA Divine Reserve were brewed in this manner. In their latest newsletter Saint Arnold's announced that the next BBBB will be in May and the style will be a Weizenbock.
Beeradvocate defines a Weizenbock as the following:
A more powerful Dunkel Weizen (of "bock strength"), with a pronounced estery alcohol character, perhaps some spiciness from this, and bolder and more complex malt characters of dark fruits.
Average ABV: 7-10%.
With that higher abv and it being a bigger more 'powerful' beer it sure sounds like this could be the next Divine Reserve. We'll have to see, but I hope so.

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