BA Hunahpu's

Recently I was lucky to head down to Tampa with a couple of co-workers to hit up the BA Hunahpu's release. For those of you out there that don't know what that stands for, it means "barrel-aged," though "bad ass" would be equally appropriate. Needless to say, I was pretty excited. They were releasing four treatments of their famous Hunahpu's Imperial Stout: Whiskey, Rum, Bourbon, and Virgin Oak. I had already had the bourbon version at the first ever Hunahpu's release, but it's definitely a foggy memory of a long day.

The event was a lot of fun combined with a small bit of insanity. The bar opens at 11am and the release was set for 1pm. We got there at about 10:15 and there were about 40-50 people in line waiting to get into the bar. The funny thing about that is that there were no lines for the release. Nothing was announced until just before 1pm. All of those people were simply waiting to get in.

Once inside, we got a shit-ton of things on tap. The members in my group went to the bar separately throughout the day and we tried just about everything that went on tap before the release (we left soon after, only to come back later that night). The highlight of that time was definitely the Tiramisu Sweet Stout (rating). This was essentially a sweet vanilla and coconut bomb, and I could have drank gallons of it.

The best part about the event was meeting up with and talking to old and new RateBeer buddies. I got to catch up with a few people from the Tampa and Orlando crews as well as meet some other RBians from all over the place. We even managed to make a couple of friends that happen to live in Tallahassee. Sweet. It was also nice hanging out with some people from work that I don't hang out with much outside of work. On top of that, the owner and the brewer from Fermentation Lounge were both there, so we chatted them up a bit as well.

Well eventually the release went down and it was pretty nuts. People had started packing their side brewery room by noon. A man got up with a megaphone and told us where each line would be and then they started handing out tickets. From what I've read online, apparently it was pretty nuts, but my crew ended up with plenty. We hooked up a couple trades in person to help out some RB buddies and then went on our merry way. We ended up with 2 of each treatment and 3 of each Big Sound treatment. We also landed a bunch of growlers from trades I had set up, and we bought some bottles from a local store. Here is a pic of everything we had... our estimate was that we had at least around $400 of Cigar City Beer, let alone the others beers in the picture.

A few days later we got together with members from the Tallahassee crew and drank them all. We did all four treatments in a row, starting with the Virgin Oak. It was even better out of the growler than I remembered in on tap at the release. The rest were all quite good, but the hands down favorite was the bourbon treatment. The aroma alone on that beer was enough to win it for me. Heaven. It's also the only bottle we have left as we traded all of our other extras. I have a feeling it'll get traded sometime in the future, though... unless we get thirsty one night. Cheers!