Today is my birthday, so like I did last year, I’m selecting a beer that isn’t (ordinarily) a Christmas/winter-themed seasonal, but is more of a "birthday choice": Deschutes Brewery‘s The Abyss. Released as part of Deschutes’ Reserve Series, this phenomenal Imperial Stout is 11% alcohol by volume and aged in barrels, and is an extremely limited release—the release party for this year’s batch is January 15th, and I guarantee it will go fast.

The Abyss has been winning awards all over the place—including the gold at this year’s GABF—and comes in a wax-dipped bottle. And just to make you all jealous (it is my birthday, after all!), let me just say that yes, I’ve drank this beer and yes, I have three bottles of last year’s vintage in my pantry.

(I plan on stocking up even more with this year’s vintage.)

BeerAdvocate score (whoa… they’ve apparently completely changed their scoring system around…): "A" (letter grade) "outstanding". RateBeer score: 4.16/5, 100% percentile.