Bourbon Barrel Champion Ground
Jackie O's Pub & Brewery

4.34/5  rDev -2.9%
look: 4 | smell: 4.25 | taste: 4.5 | feel: 4.25 | overall: 4.25
by Stevedore from Oregon

Dark brown, nearly black body. Mild dark fruit coffee bean, a nice mild coffee roast with a milk chocolate and mild whiskey flavor. Medium fuller bodied, good carbonation, nice mouthfeel with a mellow combination of roasty and smooth milk chocolate finish

Jan 02, 2022

4.57/5  rDev +2.2%
look: 3.75 | smell: 4.75 | taste: 4.75 | feel: 4.5 | overall: 4.25
by colts9016 from Idaho

Review 1699
Champion Ground
Jackie O's Pub & Brewing
Date: 2021
Barrel-Aged Stout
I am excited to drink this beer! One of my favorite true-crime podcasts has talked about this brewery; I have never consumed any of their beers. I used a tulip glass; the temperature was 46 degrees. A dark tan airy one-fingered head with dismal retention. A hard pour could not create a proper head. The quick retention left nothing on the glass. The color charts around SRM 38, a used dark oily brown, nearly black. The appearance of the beer is okay; nothing spectacular stands out. Sad to see a hyped beer with a terrible debut.
After I pried the cap off, a huge coffee aroma emitted. Nosing the beer, I detected molasses, oaky, char, caramel, toffee, dark roasted malts, toasted bread crust, leather, tobacco, alcohol, and earthiness. The barrel age permeates the beer, which is one of the primary aromas.
The coffee flavors in the beer are quality. The coffee has this rich earthy, floral, leather, and some bitterness. Taking a few more sips, I tasted molasses, smokiness, char, oak, bourbon, oranges, tobacco, a hint of phenols, bready, caramel, toffee, raisins, and chocolate. The beer demands all your taste bud's attention.
The mouthfeel is bitter, chewy, and warming. The body is heavy, has low carbonation, and has a long delightful finish.
When I saw the terrible showing for the appearance, I got a little concerned. However, those concerns quickly evaporated. This is one monster of a beer in the nose and taste. The coffee is immense and flavorful. The heavy-handed barrel aging actually helped mellow the beer a bit. I loved this beer!

Oct 22, 2021

4.43/5  rDev -0.9%
look: 4.25 | smell: 4.25 | taste: 4.5 | feel: 4.5 | overall: 4.5
by drdiesel9483 from Ohio

Look - black thick slight head and rimming
Smell - caramel mocha coffee
Taste - caramel mocha coffee
Feel - full body creamy with a light carb
Overall - fantastic

Jul 26, 2021

4.49/5  rDev +0.4%
look: 4.25 | smell: 4.5 | taste: 4.5 | feel: 4.5 | overall: 4.5
by StraightNoChaser from Georgia

Look: very dark brown, some ruby highlights when held to light. Modest mocha head on the pour that mostly subsides. Clingy, oily lacing.
Smell: roasty, vanilla, mocha.
Taste: like the nose plus a fudgy, rich thing going on. Very nice.

Jul 24, 2021

4.92/5  rDev +10.1%
look: 5 | smell: 4.75 | taste: 5 | feel: 4.75 | overall: 5
by jb_4226 from Texas

Yummy!

Jun 22, 2021

4.84/5  rDev +8.3%
look: 4.75 | smell: 5 | taste: 4.75 | feel: 5 | overall: 4.75
by micada from New York

2021 bottle poured cellar temp to a coffee mug. Hey, that was the right move because this is a great cup of coffee. No head, but some islands swirling around. Nose is amazing roasty coffee and charred oak barrel. First sips are wonderful gustatory representation of the olfactory sensation. Coffee flavor is dense, heavy, dirty in a good way. The bourbon barrel adds a nice cut to the coffee, along with a bit of vanilla sweetness. Mouthfeel is thick and full, perfect for the way this tastes. Alcohol has a little bite, but it’s still very crushable for a big beer. I had to drive 3 hours each way to get some Jackie O’s BA beers, but it was well worth the effort.

Mar 28, 2021

4.33/5  rDev -3.1%
look: 4.5 | smell: 4.5 | taste: 4.25 | feel: 4.25 | overall: 4.25
by Jcoleman4 from Ohio

Thinner than I thought it would be.

Jan 31, 2021

4.74/5  rDev +6%
look: 4.5 | smell: 4.75 | taste: 4.75 | feel: 4.75 | overall: 4.75
by trevormajor from Ohio

12.7 oz bottle, vintage 2019, poured into a snifter at 55 degrees F:
L - black as night with a hazelnut head that quickly disappeared
S - vanilla, coffee, bourbon, malt
T - mild flavors of vanilla and molasses on the nose, with a powerful finish of coffee and bourbon
F - nice, thick mouthfeel with medium carbonation
O - great beer that is well balanced and full bodied

Nov 16, 2020

4.36/5  rDev -2.5%
look: 4.25 | smell: 4.5 | taste: 4.5 | feel: 3.75 | overall: 4.25
by cbutova from Massachusetts

A- Thick 375ml bottle pours into an 8oz tasting glass with a deep black body and a one finger cocoa tan head. The head has a puffy texture and dies down somewhat quickly to a small ring at the edges. Lacing spotty and somewhat rare.

S- Bourbon barrel comes on strong right away but once you dig a bit deeper the beer opens up wonderfully with the malts and the coffee. Chocolate comes to mind right off the bat and that is joined by some caramel from the malts that creates a nice brownie feel. Some nice peppery Bourbon whiskey that gives a bit of dark fruit feel. Suggests booze but that balances with everything else nicely. A lot of vanilla throughout this. Each element comes together in harmony.

T- The barrel is a bit stronger here than in the aroma as far as the overall balance goes but good thing it is a really great barrel flavor. The whiskey, vanilla and softened oak burst onto the palate followed by rich chocolate, toasted nuts, charred barley, cocoa powder and dark roast coffee notes. A subtle smoky tobacco thing happening but secondary to the malts and barrel. Great balance of booze, sweetness and bitterness.

MF- Medium bodied overall with a moderately low level of carbonation. The mouthfeel isn't bad but it does come off a bit more oily and slick from the high ABV and it loses some of the hefty creaminess. Ends slightly warm.

I guess I have learned to trust Jackie O's with barrel aged brews over the years. A large dose of Bourbon barrel leads things off with coffee, roast grains, chocolate and vanilla notes also very strong.

Nov 08, 2020

4.35/5  rDev -2.7%
look: 3.75 | smell: 4.25 | taste: 4.5 | feel: 4.5 | overall: 4.25
by CaptainHate from Ohio

Happy Halloween.

I bought this a while ago in a bottle shop when it was too hot to enjoy a big barrel aged stout so now's the time. Poured a 12.7 ounce bottle into a DFH tulip and the head just didn't measure up over a blackish brown body so it gets nicked for that. Smell is of a generic brand Jackie O's stout, which is a pretty high standard but they have a certain sameness to them albeit on a high plane (I hope this is making sense to someone who's experienced this). They loaded this up with Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee (which coffee wise is out of my not cheap range) so it's present in the smell and taste but not to an obnoxious degree; instead things are nicely balanced. Mouthfeel is just fine for a barrel aged stout.

This has been a good experience despite my lower than average scoring.

Nov 01, 2020

4.5/5  rDev +0.7%
look: 4.5 | smell: 4.5 | taste: 4.5 | feel: 4.5 | overall: 4.5
by WunderLlama from Massachusetts

Bottle poured into a snifter

One finger creamy brown foam cap , good retention, settles to a ring over dark brown liquid with numerous streams of micro carbonation

Fragrant bourbon aroma, borkum riff tobacco, roast malts , coffee,

Taste is bourbon, coffee, roast malts

Creamy , rich mouthfeel, low sudsing , almost syrupy, coffee taste lingers but not bitter

Good beer

Aug 04, 2020

4.56/5  rDev +2%
look: 4.5 | smell: 4.75 | taste: 4.5 | feel: 4.5 | overall: 4.5
by Damian from Massachusetts

Drank from a 12.7 fl. oz. bottle purchased at Fort Point Market, Boston, MA
Served in a snifter

The beer poured pitch black and medium-full bodied for the style. Oily and slick looking in the glass. A small, frothy, mocha colored crown topped the liquid and quickly dropped to a clingy color. Minimal lacing.

The aroma was really interesting and complex. Caramel notes were most apparent initially. Some molasses came through as well. Sweet but definitely not excessively so. The coffee presence was very pleasant but a touch more subtle than I anticipated. Roasty espresso came to mind. Fragrant bourbon and vanilla notes married perfectly with the espresso. Later, the coffee intensified.

The flavor profile was also very impressive. Big roasted malt notes on the front end. Espresso was came through as well. Bit of dark chocolate in the center. Bourbon notes appeared as the beer moved along the palate. Like in the nose, the bourbon lent the beer a fragrant, vanilla-like quality. More roast and booze on the back end and in the finish. Hint of lingering bitterness after the swallow.

Terrific rich, creamy, fuller bodied mouthfeel. Slick, oily and smooth on the palate. The liquid contained a fine, fairly subtle effervescence that was spot-on for the style.

Jackie O’s Bourbon Barrel Champion Ground is a fantastic beer that perfectly combines the roasty and boozy notes found in many old-school bourbon barrel-aged coffee stouts with the richness and sweetness typical of newer takes on the style. Even though this beer was first brewed in 2015, it still has relevancy today.

Jul 25, 2020