Two Idiots Enter, One Drunk Leaves

I've had a bottle of 2008 Weyerbacher Blithering Idiot burning a hole in my pocket (shelf?) since I bought it at Capone's a couple months ago.  However, I really enjoy doing side by sides with the fresh version when I have an older vintage (like when I did Troegs Mad Elf a while back) and so haven't had the opportunity to open it.  Since I just bought three Blithering Idiots, I finally had my chance do a comparison.

On the left is the 2008 and on the right is the 2010.  From the pictures, their appearance is pretty similar, but up close the 2008 had a small amount of floating particles in it.  I believe the floaties are proteins in the beer coming out of suspension but I couldn't tell you how or why it occurs during the aging process.  The smells were similar although the 2008 was a little fruitier than the 2010.

The 2010 was very interesting flavor wise.  There is some caramel and toffee but the fruit notes reminded me of bananas.  As I drank more I decided the banana notes were a result of the mixture of the alcohol and the heavy malt presence and not like what you get from Belgian yeast.  I found the mouth feel on this to be a bit more syrupy and thick than the 2008.  Here is a longer description from an older post if you are curious.

Next was the 2008.  I found more dark fruit notes and less of the banana presence in this.  Probably the fact that the alcohol faded a bit with the aging which allowed the more subtle flavors to take a heavier presence.  I was also getting a faint taste of vanilla every once and a while which was fun.  The last new flavor was apple which I believe is a result of oxidation.

All in all, there was less of a difference between the two than between the different vintages of Mad Elf.  The flavors were slightly more pronounced in the 2008 and the alcohol a bit softer, but that was about it.  Well, the appearance suffered from the floaters in the 2008 but who cares about that as they didn't affect anything, not even when I drank them.  Wonder if aging it longer would change things or if it just doesn't change much over the years. Dunno.  Makes me look forward to trying the 2005 Insanity my friend gave me to see if two months of barrel aging then six years of bottle aging change the flavors more than just three years in the bottle..