Elysian Brewing Omen Belgian-style Raspberry Stout Coming 3/1

The funny thing about omens is that they often come back to haunt you. Omen from Seattle’s Elysian Brewing is no exception. This heady and delicious Belgian-style raspberry stout made its first appearance as the November offering in 2012’s 12 Beers of the Apocalypse series, counting down what were thought by some–well, the Mayans, anyway–to be the planet’s last days. Now it’s come back, not as an unsettling reminder of portentous words but welcomed both by those who enjoyed it back then and newcomers to the beer.

Omen is a heavy-bodied beer with a broad wingspan of dark malts, including Weyermann Dark Munich, Castle Amber, Franco-Belges Kiln Coffee and Roasted Barley and Chocolate and Black malts from Crisp in the UK. The esters of a classic Trappist yeast flutter amid all that malty goodness and the tang of Washington raspberries add a compelling fruity complexity. Alcohol by volume is 7.9%.

Omen is the first in a new series of beers from Elysian, which will periodically release another dark beer of prodigious character. Later into the year will come The Dread, a wood-aged Imperial Stout previously brewed by Steve Luke at Elysian Fields, and after that will come a newly-dubbed beer reprising the 2013 GABF silver medal-winning chocolate coffee stout we brewed for one of Brew Dog’s globe-trotting TV shows seen on the Esquire Network. The episode was filmed aboard the Bainbridge Island ferry, but the actual brew was crafted by Kevin Watson at our Capitol Hill brewery.

Look for Omen March 1 in 22-ounce bottles with a stylized Death’s Head moth on the label, and on draft at all Elysian pubs and throughout its distribution network.