Gratitude - Scotch Barrel-Aged
East End Brewing Company

Poured at fridge temp, but allowed to warm for about 10 min before tasting. The nose is very much from a peated scotch. Wow. Lagavulin? Maybe even Ardbeg? A monster. Makes it tough to pick anything else out from the nose. Maybe a hint of toffee and malts, but I don't know. Lower score on the nose is from the lack of other notes.

The taste follows the nose. Holy hell - this is like drinking a peated scotch straight from the bottle! I don't know how so much barrel comes through! Definitely getting other notes of plum, leather, burnt toffee, and a hint of maple candy. Very nice on the taste!

Barleywine + Barrel = Sign Me Up. Especially Gratitude. An old school classic that I’ve found it far superior fresh. So this, & six other cans of various barrels, are going down soon.

Hasn’t changed its outer core in the past thirteen years, still a mucky, murky dark red. The nose is all scotch; cannot detect the barleywine with my existing technology.

Gratitude – Scotch Barrel Aged avoids the pitfall of jamming scotch several inches into my taste buds. No denying it’s there: earthy, peaty scotch is up front & carrying exactly no alcohol in its arms. Then things fragment into a cascade of toffee, molasses, blue oak, with a finish that’s nearly IPA dank. Big, thick body more akin to a stout than your mother’s barleywine. Serving size is appropriate.

Looking forward to trying the rye & bourbon versions on back-to-back to back nights. I suspect this will be the least of them in my mouth. Good beer.

 

 

Pours a dark bloody-burgundy with a heavy haze to the translucency. Head is a finger of khaki foam. Aroma is peat moss right from the get-go. Earthy, toasty, and caramely malts form alongside caramel and fig and smoke, but peat moss dominates. Perhaps the better term would be Islay Scotch barrel-aged. Alcohol is tempered, and does not come forward in any part of the aroma. Flavor profile is earthy, toasty, caramel malts with heavy peat, moss, and smoke behind. Barleywine notes come through in fragments, sitting backseat to the scotch barrel presence. Barleywine notes of fig and raisins help sweeten it up ever so slightly. Mouth feel is a still, boiled texture with a very light bumpy gristle to it. Thickness is medium-thick. Overall, scotch forward, with barleywine second. It's heavy on the peat note, which may or may not be desirable, and is notable since not all scotches feature peat prominently.

Served in a 15.5oz Spiegelau tulip from a 12oz can.

 

Oh man. I LOVE this but you probably won't. I'm emphatic about scotch aged beers whereas most people turn their nose up at them and this one is NOT shy about where it came from.

This beer in a scotch barrel is a match made in heaven. It takes a special, mature beer to work well and this beer fits the bill.

Just a huge body. Dense, chewy layers of caramel malt and dusty hops. If you've never had gratitude its very bigfoot-esque hop wise. Just a lot more malt and body than the aforementioned. Classic gratitude flavors dowsed with smoke and iodine. Much less perceived alcohol than the rye barrel aged i had yesterday.

This beer is not for everyone. But if scotch aged is your thing then its absolute must try.

This year's new competitor enters the ring as the most turbidly opaque of them all, otherwise displaying that typical prune juice brown under a creamy yet thin khaki head that quickly disperses to a fine ring.

Expecting nothing less--sorry not sorry Laphroaig--this exudes all the unpleasant peat characteristics of dirt rubbed Band-Aids and smoky alder wood, albeit partially redeemed by mitigating touches of sweet dark grape and caramel.

The medium body has a fine, mild crispness running into a lightly chewy dry finish.

A certified palate wrecker, yet a blessing in disguise, this actually served as a stark contrast to the all excellence beside it here on Gratitude Day 2022.

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However, about a year later, some complexity has developed, while perhaps my palate has grown more fond of Islay Scotch, both contributing to me being able to enjoy this far more. There's some caramels and barrel chars I'm more able to pull apart, as well as some darker grahams or gingerbreads far in the background. That said, I don't feel justified in altering my original score based on home cellaring, although I can't help but admit that I'm far more excited to try my last can one more year down the line.