The Tradition of Big Beer Releases on Black Friday Continues

Black Friday is seen as a time for shopping, and it's no different in the beer world. Inspired by the original Goose Island Bourbon County releases, breweries have, over the years, followed suit by releasing a slew of Black Friday special release beers, usually big beers such as stouts and barleywines. While these beers are delicious to drink off tap or to bring home in a bottle, they also make fantastic holiday gifts for the big beer lover in your life.

Here are some special releases to check out this week:

Burns Family Artisan Ales will release its annual I Hate Shopping Black IPA to go along with $5 pours all day. And while I Hate Shopping is not a big beer, we're making an exception for Burns since the brewery is notorious for making fantastic high-ABV beers, plus it's releasing a 16 percent ABV Cognac barrel-aged stout, called Spirit of the Season, on Saturday, November 26, just one day after Black Friday.
Copper Kettle Brewing will also keep the yearly tradition going, with its Black Friday cellar release. Vintage bottles and cans of the brewery's two flagship big beers, Well Bred Barleywine and Snowed In Imperial Oatmeal Stout, will be available all day. Copper Kettle will also release this year's Snowed In gift box, which contains five variations of 2021 Snowed In, including mocha, coconut, cherry, vanilla and maple, along with a 10 ounce glass.

New Image Brewing will release four big beers for Black Friday: 9505, a wood-finished barleywine; Estufa, a macro-oxidized barleywine inspired by the Madeira wine process; Underworld Barista - Chai, a barrel-aged affogato stout; and Double Barrel Anaphora, a double-barrel-aged imperial stout. Bottle pre-sales take place at noon on November 23 and are available starting November 25 at noon, when head brewer Brandon Capps will lead a barleywine tasting and tour at the Wheat Ridge location.

Resolute Brewing is tapping its Beneath Ancient Sand, an imperial oatmeal stout. The 10.5 percent ABV beer is brewed with six different grains. This beer is very limited, draft-only, and will be pouring on the nitro faucet at the Centennial location.
Station 26 Brewing is not only releasing four imperial stout variations, but it is also holding a Black Friday market, featuring local vendors such as Colorado Woodcraft Co., Fonda Elizabeth Arts, Homestead in the Hood, Lune Bath + Body, Bits Bobs and Sundry, and Wakey Bakey Designs. Food trucks will be on the premises throughout the day, as well. The imperial stout variations include Mexican chocolate, Turkish coffee, crème brûlée and spumoni (pistachio, cherry and chocolate).

Uhl's Brewing has a reputation for making delicious barrel-aged stouts, harking back to the days when founder Aaron Uhl home-brewed these big beers. Friday will see Uhl's release eight new barrel-aged stouts, including three different single-barrel variants of the brewery's Deep Dark Depths series, including Heaven Hill, Templeton Rye and W.L. Weller Antique 107 barrel versions. When you take into account the eight new beers, Uhl's will have a whopping 22 barrel-aged beers available on Black Friday!

Verboten Brewing in Loveland is throwing Barley Friday for Black Friday, with four variants of its multi-award-winning barrel-aged barleywine, Grow Old With You. Double-oaked rum, Weller Antique, Grand Reserve and double-oaked Cognac variants will be available on draft and in 16-ounce cans. The brewery will have several other barleywines on tap, including fantastic guest barleywines like Fremont Brewing's Brew 6000 and Westbound & Down Brewing's 2021 Double Barrel Louie.
Westbound & Down Brewing is getting into the Friday fun day spirit itself, tapping Beyond Description, a barrel-aged stout with massive amounts of coconut, pecan, hazlenut and vanilla. The brewery will also have limited bottles of 2022 Opulence, a bourbon-barrel-aged stout with vanilla, available at all three locations.

Westfax Brewing in Lakewood is releasing a host of beers, including Vanilla, Almond, Cherry Beta Wave, a barrel-aged stout, and Assorted Variety: Peppermint Bark, a pastry stout. The brewery will also release The Elvis Stout, appropriately featuring peanut butter, banana and bacon. Bingo with prizes and music will also round out the day of fun.
Wiley Roots Brewing will have a four-beer release centered around Midnight, its house cat. Midnight on the Run is named after the typical response the team gives when patrons ask where Midnight is: "On the run somewhere." The Greeley-based brewery will release four variants of Midnight on the Run, including a coconut variant, a Mexican hot chocolate-inspired variant and a chocolate variant, along with a version aged for twenty months in bourbon barrels.