This past Saturday my ultra-good-friend Kina brought me a super-special limited edition bottle of Deschutes Brewery‘s Jubel 2000 Millenium.* I don’t know where she found this, or if she’d been saving it since the year 2000 or whenever… but Kina: thank you! This was awesome.

And it’s a very good beer, too. It aged well (it was stored properly, I assume) and was wonderfully complex and tasty and warming. Let’s go to the review…

Appearance: Murky, thick, brown… reminds me of a very dark raw apple cider. Very little head, low carbonation.

Smell: Spicy, smokey, like a strong liqueur or even a whiskey or scotch. Some vanilla? Licorice? Complex. Very barleywine-ish.

Taste: Malty, rich, strong! Alcohol heat at the back of the throat. Complex. Sweet and dark and spicy, like a fruitcake without the molasses. Very, very good. Very much like a barleywine, though the RateBeer site only lists it at 7% alcohol by volume… perhaps this rose a bit as it aged in the bottle? It’s oaky, aged, and mellow on the bite. Hops are very mild here, almost undetectable.

Mouthfeel: Thick (though not as thick as a good stout), smokey/oily in a good way. Mellow on the palate though you can tell there’s alcohol strength there.

On BeerAdvocate, there’s only one review—not enough to get a good score. That review rated it at an overall 3.95 out of 5, though, not bad. RateBeer has 34 ratings pegging it at 3.97 out of 5, solidly in their 98th percentile. Definitely deserves the high score.

*Needless to say, Kina gets the "ultra-good-friend" label because she thoughtfully brought me beer with the understanding—nay, the responsibility—of blogging about it. Shannon’s in the club too. Wanna be an ultra-good-friend (UGF)? Give me specialty beer! :)