‘Baptist Season:’ Epic Brewing Announces 2020 Big Bad Baptist Lineup

Big Bad Baptist Variants 2020 - Featured

Each fall, the air gets crisper, the leaves change color, and Epic Brewing ushers in “Baptist Season.”

Epic Brewing - 2020 Big Bad Baptist Variants

The revelation of Epic’s Big Bad Baptist lineup is a time-honored tradition for barrel-aged stout fans.

This time, the Salt Lake-based brewery plans to release five variants, in addition to the original Big Bad Baptist barrel-aged imperial stout. The OG, incidentally, will now be available year-round.

Epic expects the beers to be available at its State Street bottle shop in October, according to Gus Erickson, marketing manager. Alcohol content’s not finalized, but each will land in the 10-13% range.

Epic said it considered almost a dozen different variants before settling on five. Two are new twists on beloved favorites, while others are totally new varieties.

Here’s a quick rundown of the lineup, each of which is aged in whiskey barrels:

  • Big Bad Baptist: The classic barrel-aged imperial stout
  • Bigger Badder Baptista: After skipping a year, “Baptista” is back
  • Double Chocolate Double Peanut Butter: No longer must one choose between chocolate and peanut butter
  • Pecan Pie: Brewed with cinnamon and pecans
  • Chocolate Raspberry: Raspberry-infused Big Bad Baptist.
  • Sextuple Barrel: It started with two barrels in 2016. This time (which Epic promises will be the final one in the series) it blends ingredients from six barrels.
  • Reserve 2020: Released in June, it’s a blend of the best barrels from 2019 Big Bad Baptist projects. Fewer than 600 cases were produced.

2020 Big Bad Baptist Season

Big Bad Baptist

“We spent the off-season continuing to improve our most recognized beer and we know you’ll think the 2020 release is the best yet,” Epic writes. “Even better, Big Bad Baptist is going year-round so you can enjoy your favorite barrel-aged stout during all four seasons.”

The original Big Bad Baptist will be available in 12-oz., 4-pack cans in most markets and 22-oz. bottles in each of the 26 states Epic distributes.

Bigger Badder Baptista

This one started in 2017, took a year off in 2019, and is back for 2020. “Inspired by the smokey bite of Mezcal, we added a pinch of smoked malt and a dash of salt to the mix of the Café de Olla spices,” Epic writes.

Big Bad Baptist Double Chocolate Double Peanut Butter

Chocolate Rapture Baptist and Peanut Butter Cup Baptist were Epic’s two-most popular variants of the 2019 releases. For 2020, Epic combined and then doubled the amount of chocolate and peanut butter.

Big Bad Baptist Pecan Pie

Brewed with cinnamon and pecans to pair with the bourbon and coffee notes of Big Bad Baptist.

Big Bad Baptist Chocolate Raspberry

Tangy and tart raspberries are blended with Big Bad Baptist.

Big Bad Baptist Sextuple Barrel

“This beer represents the culmination of a half-decade of pushing the boundaries of barrel-aged beer,” Epic writes. This is “the very final effort (really, we need to stop, we won’t continue this madness) in our annual numbered series.”

Aged in whiskey barrels, it also includes barrel-aged coffee, cacao, coconut, almonds, and salt.