I'm going on a date and we have to be home by six. Unfortunately for me, that is six in the morning! Now, normally this would be perfect, but I'm on the graveyard shift and my date is hefty, seductive and Russian. And...requires lots of attention. I've clocked in for my shift at 8 PM and I've been tasked with brewing our Russian Imperial Stout, The Abyss, in the middle of the night. Certainly this is an honorable endeavor.

Our 50 barrel gravity fed brew house is only fired up every other week and usually just for Obsidian Stout. It's a favorite place to brew among our staff because we are not at the mercy of intricate software built of indecipherable logic. If you want to move beer, actually called "wort" at the brewing stage, from one vessel to another, you psychically grab a valve and open it. Of course, this also means it's easier to draw immediate and immense amounts of enduring ridicule from fellow brewers when you do this incorrectly...but that's a topic for another day.

The enduring quality of Deschutes Brewery’s Reserve Series is no more apparent than with the 6th release of The Abyss. This imperial stout is the heart and soul of the Reserve Series. It built the house and raised the wax-topped roof. Then brought the house down. The Abyss is the wheelhouse and the lighthouse. It epitomizes great accomplishments. Its success is the bar to measure all other adventures.