Saranac Black Forest was introduced to Beer Bowl by Joe T.  A longtime personal favorite of his, he brought the relatively inexpensive beer and entered it in to the Beer Bowl IV field.
Different than today, Beer Bowl IV was more of an 'open' competition where there were nearly 40 total beers entered in the bracket.  Black Forest marched through the competition and came up short in the finals - loosing Beer Bowl IV by a narrow margin to Sam Adams Winter Lager.

Beer Bowl V had a new format - a season leading up to it.  Black Forest made it through the season and ultimately knocked off Pete's Wicked Ale in the finals to win.

Being the past seasons winner, Black Forest had it's ticket punched for Beer Bowl VI.  Marching through to the final four, it met Pete's and lost narrowly.

Most recently, entered in to Beer Bowl VII as a wild-card, it marched all the way through to the finals where it defeated Pete's Wicked for the Beer Bowl VII title.

Four final four finishes including two Beer Bowl wins in the past four years?  Saranac Black Forest has definately proven itself a top shelf beer.

That said, we honor Black Forest by officially retiring it from Beer Bowl competition.