Beer of the Week! 08/26/24

Blue Mountain Dark Hollow

Normally $16.99 / Now on Sale for $15.96 (4-Pack 12oz bottles)
Bourbon Barrel-Aged Imperial Stout

In celebration of August being Virginia Craft Beer Month, our August Beers of the Week will not just be Virginia beers, but local beers!

Before co-founding Blue Mountain Brewery in 2007 with his wife Mandy and their business partner Matt Nucci, Taylor Smack was the head brewer at South Street Brewery, where he pioneered their signature ales. Before that esteemed local gig, he was in Chicago heading up the brewing for Goose Island Brewing Company's brewpubs. (This was before they were Fee-Fo-Fummed by International Beer Giant AB InBev).

Now, Goose Island is the maker of the legendary Bourbon County Stout — America’s first commercially offered bourbon barrel-aged stout — and Smack was working there about five years into that beer’s run. So, it's no wonder that four years after founding Blue Mountain, Taylor oversaw the building of the Blue Mountain Barrel House — a facility dedicated to barrel-aged beers. Sadly, that program has scaled down, but its first beer – the Dark Hollow – remains.

The Dark Hollow starts with a low-roast Imperial Stout that Blue Mountain ages for months in charred American oak bourbon barrels, where it picks up its bourbon and vanilla notes. Even though it’s got all the richness and fullness of malt and bourbon flavor that you want, it distinguishes itself by retaining just enough of a hop presence to balance things out.

We cannot stress enough what a local gem this beer is.