Fallen Friar

BridgePort bottled the latest in the line of BridgePort's "Big Brews" series today. Here's the skinny:
Fallen Friar, the newest 22 ounce BridgePort Big Brew is one sinister temptation. With an ABV of 8.2%, don’t turn your back on this Tripel. An Abbey Style Ale, it demands the respect from Brewers of the Highest Order. Fallen Friar packs the ultimate punch of spicy Belgian yeast flavors. Aged in bourbon and pinot noir barrels, it’s a fallen angel you will admire.

Fallen Friar combines German pilsner malt and PNW wheat malt with German Hallertau and Czech Saaz hops. But the secret lies in the cloves, banana and spice attributes found in the yeast strain. BridgePort has brewed a miracle of malt. And this very special brew will have you blowing graciously in no time.
So far, the brewery's got a pretty good batting average with this series, and it's one of the bigger bargains of the beer world. Of course, there was the Stumptown Tart experiment, so I'll go ahead and try it before I make any final decisions.

Slightly tangentially, it's interesting how different the labels for the big beer series have been. I recall when the brewery was trying to create a coherent brand image by making all the labels the same (ridding themselves of some of the prettiest labels in brewing). That was some time ago, apparently long enough to have run the experiment: a "unified family" look apparently has its limitations. Below the fold I'll include some of the iterations of BridgePort branding.

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