Review: Firestone Walker Brewmaster’s Collective 2024 – Collective Choice, Bendy Foldies, and Maltose Falcons

Firestone Walker’s beer club, the Brewmaster’s Collective, continued to churn out a slew of creative, barrel-aged beers in 2024. We received a whopping six different boozy brews for consideration from last year’s release, but so far, we’ve only gotten to three. As I said when reviewing the latest Anniversary Ale, these aren’t Miller Lites, people. Thoughtful beer drinking takes time! And those thoughts follow.

Firestone Walker Collective Choice – Firestone’s Club Members voted on the final composition of this beer, a blended ale with amburana and coffee aged in bourbon barrels and chocolate bitters barrels. It pours a rich mahogony color with a slight amber tint and a quickly dissipating cocoa-hued head. On the nose, the amburana is immediately evident with a big kick of fragrant baking spices, Ceylon cinnamon and candied ginger foremost among them. As it opens, that woody spice is reined in with dark roast coffee and fudgy dark chocolate. Despite a lot of dark, sultry top notes, there’s a nice energy to this aroma. On the palate, there’s plenty of chocolate up front with undertones of espresso and Madagascar vanilla bean. Still, the stout shines through with a dense, malty body and gentle bitterness that lingers on the finish alongside cinnamon sugar and lightly toasted marshmallow. A dessert brew to be sure but surprisingly not heavy or overly boozy at this abv. 12.4% abv. A- / $13

Firestone Walker Bendy Foldies – This beer is named for a colloquialism for $100 bills, a nod to Firestone’s no-expense-spared production approach for the ale, which is made by re-racking Double DBA into freshly-emptied 30-year-old Heaven Hill bourbon barrels and aging on scraped vanilla beans and toasted pistachios. It pours a deep amber color with a thin, pale head that quickly dissolves in the glass with minimal lacing. The aroma is boozy and deep with dark chewy caramel, toffee, and vanilla buttercream icing. As it opens, the roasted nuts arrive alongside Saigon cinnamon and clove, delivering a dead ringer for warm sticky buns. On the palate this is one of the more decadent Firestone Walker barrel-aged beers I’ve ever tasted. Rich notes of brown butter, vanilla ice cream, and melted cinnamon sugar give way to peanut butter fudge and nutty biscotti. It’s like a Cold Stone Creamery in a glass, at times crossing the line as overly buttery and cloying. The finish is heavy and long with notes of melted caramel and baklava. A big, boozy, crazy brew, not for the faint of heart. 14% abv. B+ / $13

Firestone Walker Maltose Falcons – After a decade-long hiatus, Firestone has rereleased this beer to commemorate the 50th anniversary of America’s oldest homebrew club. It’s an imperial brown barleywine, dubbed Browneywine by Firestone, crafted with brown sugar, honey, and Simpson’s Chocolate malt and aged for 12 months in a mix of bourbon and rye barrels. It pours a dark chestnut brown with a short-lived and khaki-tinged head. The aroma is malty and sweet with Turbinado sugar, maple candies, and Belgian chocolate. As it opens, a woody note – almost chicory – adds to the complexity. On the palate, top notes of dark honey and cocoa nibs give way to Hershey’s chocolate sauce and barley sugar. While it’s a bit less boozy than other Firestone brews, it’s just as sweet, if not sweeter, with a rush of dark brown sugar and cinnamon candies on the finish, tempered just so with a gentle bitterness. A bit cloying but enjoyable, nonetheless. 10% abv. B+ / $13

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