Brewery owner, Tim Weber, and Executive Director of the Asheville Museum of Science, Anna Priest, went on WLOS Saturday morning to talk about their upcoming collaborations, a 20 month aged, bourbon-barrel Mass Extinction Imperial Stout and Mass Extinction aged on stainless steel for 8 months. The beer will be released next Thursday, the 25th at 6:30 pm at a event that will highlight both organizations.
Twin Leaf Brewery crafted these limited-release beers to benefit the Asheville Museum of Science's impending move into its new facility in the Wells Fargo building adjacent to Pritchard Park. The new location will nearly double the museum’s exhibition and classroom space.
The beers, Mass Extinction and Bourbon Barrel-Aged Mass Extinction, are both variations on a traditional imperial stout. The malt bill for the base beer consisted primarily of Maris Otter, Biscuit and Chocolate malts along with oats and a few other specialty malts. The hop bill was composed predominantly of Columbus and Chinook. The non-barrel variant clocks in at 10.2% ABV and was aged for eight months on stainless, while the barrel-aged version boasts a healthy 12 % ABV and spent over a year and a half in oak.
Barrel-Aged Mass Extinction boasts added flavors of vanilla and tannic bitterness due to the barrels. In addition to the same name, both beers have a T-rex on their label, an image that has become symbolic of the museum, as they have acquired a juvenile “cousin” to the T-Rex for their exhibits.
Both versions of Mass Extinction will be tapped for a special event celebrating the collaboration at Twin Leaf’s South Slope taproom 6-8:30 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 25, with a limited number of bottles on sale to the public. Representatives from AMOS and Twin Leaf will be on hand at the event to speak with the public about the expansion project and the beers.