Kotas Reviews Black Abbey Brewing's Metatron

Ah, Nashville. My original home town and burgeoning brewery and distillery hub. I'm not exactly sure why Nashville has become such a place, though perhaps the draw of Hot Chicken calls to beer producers, but it is what it is, and that's not a bad thing. One of these days, I'll have to do a drink tour of Nashville and make pilgrimage to these shrines to Hops and Barley, but not this day. No, instead we look at our first barrel aged beer as we investigate Black Abbey Brewing's Metatron.

Now that is some fucking majesty right there ya'll.

According to their site, the good people at Black Abbey named the brewery out of a sense of respect for Martin Luther. Personally, I think that's just good storytelling, but whatever works I suppose. The bottle's label is pretty damned impressive. It's got the awesome Black Abbey logo, the word "Metatron" in a kick ass font, and there's signatures and shit all over this boss. It looks pretty solid, is what I'm saying. Let's pop the cork!

It's...lighter than I imagined.

I'll be honest, I don't know what barrel aging does for a beer, but I've never had one before and I wanted it to be special. Plus, the name "Metatron" has a special place in my heart as of late. I mean, who wouldn't want to have a name that literally means "angel who speaks with the voice of God"? That's just super rad sounding. The scent is very malty and...earthy? It smells very interesting, very much "beer" with something else. I guess that's the barrel aging? Let's take a sip!

Sweet God in Heaven, why hast thou forsaken me? The flavor of this beer can best be described as "rag squeezin's". It's sour, bitter, stale tasting, and plain all around nasty. I wanted to be sent to beer heaven, but instead I got thrown into beer hell. I managed to get through the first glass from this bottle, which by the end had sort of made it up to "well, it's not poison", but the second glass was...cloudy. Perhaps that's simply a characteristic of this beer, or barrel aged beers in general, but it didn't look "interesting", it looked gross. I poured it out along with whatever remained in the bottle. 

On the FACE Rating System, this gets 3 Frowny Faces. I didn't die, so that's a thing, but this claims to be angelic while actually being quite the opposite. I wouldn't sic this on the Robot Devil, let alone anyone I actually liked. Okay, I kind of like the Robot Devil. Still, stay the hell away from this!