Thirty-two months in Willett barrels. Thirty-four in Buffalo Trace. Brasserie du Bas-Canada blended the two together and released the result this morning, describing it as a small last-minute addition to its Oktoberfest lineup.

Curiosité #2 is an Imperial Stout at 11.9 percent ABV, sold in 375 ml bottles with a limit of two per person. It is the only bottle in a release otherwise made up of cans, and by a wide margin the strongest beer in it.

The barrels are the story. Bas-Canada says the blend averages 33 months of maturation across bourbon barrels from two Kentucky distilleries, and puts the individual figures at 32 months for the Willett casks and 34 for the Buffalo Trace. That is a long time by the standards of barrel-aged stout, where programs commonly run somewhere between six and eighteen months. Past a certain point, the wood stops adding and starts taking over, so holding a beer for nearly three years and still calling the result delicate implies a fair amount of attention paid along the way.

Blending across two distilleries is the other deliberate choice here. Different barrel sources arrive with different residual spirit character and different histories in the wood, and combining them is a way to build complexity that no single barrel would produce on its own. It also means the brewery gave up the easier option of bottling each separately.

On flavor, the brewery describes nuances and aromas of bourbon and chocolate with a strong presence of wood, over a texture it calls rich and thick but balanced. Bas-Canada frames the beer as the junction between intensity and delicacy, and says it is clearly one of the best Imperial Stouts it has blended. The stated goal was a beer built entirely on nuance, and an indulgent one.

The bottle is dipped in gold wax over a label of looping abstract linework studded with small eye motifs, marked simply CURIOSITÉ #2 and IMPERIAL STOUT BA.

Bottles went on sale online at 11 a.m. today at bascanada.beer, released from the brewery's Hautes-Plaines site, with a week allowed for collection. Barrel-aged Imperial Stout is also a fixture of the brewery's annual membership, which includes a bottle allocation from the program.

Editor’s Take

Bas-Canada calls this a small last-minute addition to the release. The beer has been sitting in oak since late 2023. I have rarely enjoyed a sentence more. Somewhere there is a brewer who looked at a finished Oktoberfest lineup, thought it was looking a bit light, and casually reached for something that had been quietly working on itself for the better part of three years.

The blending is the genuinely interesting decision. Two barrel sources, two different Kentucky distilleries, 32 months in one and 34 in the other, then combined rather than released separately as a vertical or a pair of siblings. That is the harder and less marketable route. Two single-barrel bottlings would give you a tasting exercise and twice the shelf presence. One blend gives you a beer, and the only person who gets to enjoy the comparison is the brewer doing the blending.

And it lands in a release otherwise devoted to four lagers and a thirst-quenching Pils, in a 375 ml bottle under gold wax, limited to two per person. Every Oktoberfest table needs one guest who has dressed entirely for a different occasion.

Source & Editorial

JollyPint independently prepares release articles using information published by breweries through newsletters, websites, and other official public communications. Brewery-supplied descriptions and tasting notes are reported as provided, while editorial context is added by JollyPint.

Curiosité #2 Spent Nearly Three Years in Willett and Buffalo Trace

A blended Imperial Stout drawn from bourbon barrels held 32 and 34 months, from two different Kentucky distilleries. The brewery calls it a meeting of intensity and delicacy, and released it as a last-minute addition.

Source & Editorial