Inaugural Helm’s Deep Day | December 17th, 2016
Helm’s Deep Day 2020 is this Saturday, December 19th, beginning at 12p. Bottles of Helm’s Deep and German Chocolate Helm’s Deep can be purchased in advance by clicking here. Read below for the storied history behind these beers and what we have planned for Saturday.
This week we bottled our brewery’s most beloved beer, Helm’s Deep, and its variant German Chocolate Helm’s Deep, in anticipation of our annual release this Saturday, the 19th, on the fifth annual Helm’s Deep Day. Helm’s Deep Day and the release of this unique beer is one of our favorite brewery traditions. While it won’t include the same pomp and circumstance this year due to COVID, we still look forward to seeing you at the brewery to enjoy the 2020 vintage and send you home with a bottle or few. In some ways, it seems only yesterday when we announced the first Helm’s Deep Day on December 17, 2016. At that time, Georgia sales from a brewery were still illegal, and the bottles had to be a part of a tour purchase. We had just introduced the beer at a private bottle share of barrel-aged stouts where the small gathering agreed it held up with some of the best in the country. Shortly after, we watched it win People’s Choice at the Wrecking Bar Strong beer fest. This was our first time brewing such a viscous barrel-aged stout, and most of the beer went into PX sherry barrels a year before with only one bourbon barrel filled with the beer. As we aged and tasted the beer internally, we found the bourbon barrel to be the superior choice and elected to save the Sherry barrels for later. With only one barrel to package, we ended up with a limited number of kegs and only 100 bottles of Helm’s Deep to sell. Electing to offer it on-line as part of a tour package, the announced bottle and tasting ticket price of $45 set off a firestorm argument on the subreddit r/atlbeer that is still remembered by many as the Battle of Helm’s Deep. Tickets, however, sold out in less than a minute, and that misty, cold December day saw one of the first lines and morning bottle shares outside our brewery. At the brewery, it was a moment of glory and celebration as we welcomed our customers into our cozy taproom where we served Helm’s Deep, a host of other barrel aged beers, and sent a small number away with a coveted bottle of that first HD vintage.
Meanwhile, those sherry barrels filled with Helm’s Deep kept aging until we finally emptied them in August of 2017, just before we were invited to the Shelton Beer Fest being held in Atlanta for the first time. With breweries attending from all over the country and world and beer lovers coming in from all over, we decided that a big barrel-aged stout might have a chance to stand out. But the sherry barrel combined with the chocolate character of this stout needed something else to help balance the intense sweetness. Inspired by the flavors of German Chocolate cake, toasted coconut and espresso proved to be the perfect addition, and German Chocolate Helm’s Deep was born. We first introduced the beer to the festival-goers on that Friday afternoon, 8/25, and as the evening wore on, more and more people started coming to our booth asking for that stout they were hearing about. Soon we had a line, and that day’s keg kicked early. The second keg went on the next morning for day 2 of the festival, and the line started immediately, with many saying this was the sleeper hit of the festival. Back at the brewery, we had been preparing for another momentous day about to come, September 1, 2017, when the law would become official allowing Georgia breweries to sell beer by the glass and beer to go from our taprooms for the first time. In hindsight, releasing GCHD on that same day and another new beer, Inceptus Blueberry, might have seemed overly ambitious. Still, we knew we wanted the day to be a grand celebration, and felt this was the best way to ensure that. To this day, the line that ran from our door and up the street was the longest we’ve ever seen, and servicing so many people on the first day of a new era was one of our biggest challenges to date. But we wouldn’t have it any other way.
Since those earliest introductions, we’ve combined these two beers' release into a single Helm’s Deep Day usually held each December. For many, the line outside the brewery that accompanies this release with the ceremonial bottle share before opening our doors is an annual tradition. Unfortunately, due to the safety issues of the Pandemic and to mitigate the impact of crowds, we’ve chosen this year to release almost all of the inventory of HD and GCHD on-line via Oznr so you can pick up the beer at your leisure within 2 weeks of purchase. Over the last few weeks, our crew has tasted barrels and identified the best blends for each beer, using a combination of 4 to 8-year-old Weller and Four Roses bourbon barrels to make what most of us at the brewery consider our best vintage yet. And while we are discouraging lines and over-crowding of our tap room this year, we will still of course be pouring this Saturday the 2020 Helm’s Deep and German Chocolate HD, in addition to the 2019 Anniversary Vanilla-Maple Bourbon HD, 2019 GCHD, and 2018 HD alongside other barrel aged stouts including 2020 Departed Spirit, 2019 Double Smack, and 2020 Double Snack as well as a multitude of other beers. All of this is happening at our Decatur location, The Parlour, where you can also pick up your HD bottles. Joining in on the Helm’s Deep Day celebration this year is our new location, The Imaginarium, which will also be pouring both 2020 HD and GCHD. Bottle pick-ups will be limited to Decatur, however.
In a year that seems lost to so much of what we enjoy as humans, where so much of what drives our vision for making beer has been reduced to the bare minimum, we hope this special day, this special beer, and the special people behind this beer makes your December just a little bit brighter. Happy Holidays and Happy Helm’s Deep Day 2020!