Smoke From The Oak (Apple Brandy Imperial Version)
Captain Lawrence Brewing Co.

750ml bottle into Duvel tulip. Bottled in '10. From the gift pack with the Rum and Wine barrel aged versions, both of which I've drank and reviewed over the past year.

Sidenote: Let it not be said that Captain Lawrence tries to stiff its customers out of beer, as this bottle was filled to about an inch from the cap.

Appearance: Free pour yields a one and a half inch tan head that dissipates slowly leaving a thick ring of lacing. Pours dark brown / black and leaves big swatches and spots of lacing everywhere. Looks like both of the other versions, ie excellent.

Smell: Lots of soft vanilla oak, smoked malt, and some apple. Booze and pine quickly emerge. Nutty.

Beautiful and balanced aroma. Probably the best smelling of the three, actually.

Taste: Smooth feel and flavor up front, oaky and malty with a healthy cutting bitterness, leading to an apple and smoke finish with a giant alcohol heat in the chest. Heat and aftertaste last a long time.

Smoked malt is much more subdued in this beer than in the regular Imperial Smoked Porter or the other imperial Smoke from the Oak beers. While this provides a great balance up front, there's unfortunately some unpleasant solvent / cheap whiskey flavor around the finish. This beer wears its ABV on its sleeve much moreso than the other two.

At the same time, the long, delicious apple / smoke interplay aftertaste and powerful heat make this beer a rewarding sipper. Also, the beautiful, balanced character of the smell steadily emerges in the beginning and middle of each sip, oak-forward, nutty, boozy, with some brandy notes to make things more interesting. The finish alternates between campfire and cheap whiskey.

Surpassed by the almost-perfect flavor of the rum barrel aged version, this beer tastes simultaneously better and worse than the wine version. Up front, more is going on, more balance is achieved, and the flavors work better together. In back, there's surprising flaws that are not present in either of the other barrel versions, nor in the original Imperial Smoked Porter.

Mouthfeel: Medium bodied. Very creamy, but welcomely punched up by the carbonation and bitterness.

Overall: The apple acidity, nuttiness, and deep overall flavor make this a very enjoyable beer, but all told I think it's the weakest of the three. To put it another way, I would pay $60+ for 3 bottles of the imperial rum barrel aged Smoke from the Oak, but if they were all apple brandy I'd have to take a pass.

Another giant American beer that hits very high heights, but can't avoid some notable flaws. Still, the apple brandy influence is, if nothing else, very interesting, and the base beer is so good that it would be hard to really mess this up. Mildly recommended to any beer drinker, highly recommended to fans of Captain Lawrence's Imperial Smoked Porter, since in the end I believe the experiment yields enough unique flavor to make trying it worthwhile.

 

Poured from a 500ml bottle into a Speiglau BA glass.

Look is absolutely opaque with a dark tan head.

Aroma is strong apple brandy with a light roast malt.

Taste is much lighter than expected. Almost like a apple brandy cocktail.

 

 

 

 

L: Poured from a bottle to a pint glass. Had a dark brown / black color and an opaque consistency. There was a big, creamy, tan-colored, fairly long-lasting head. Not much head, though.

S: A nice aroma of malt, smoke, oak, apple, and some chocolate.

T: Tasted of whole bunch of smoke (much more evident when you're first drinking it), a tinge of apple, a good amount of malt, light chocolate, a bit of booze, and oak. A very solid flavor that's a little bracing at first, but gets better as it goes along. Complex and interesting.

F: A good amount of carbonation with a smooth finish. Medium-bodied.

O: This is the kind of beer that won't please everyone, but it's definitely worth a try. Drinkable.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Creamy chocolate with slight hints of oak chips. Faint red apple finish. Not bad