Barrel Reserve Blend
Fremont Brewing Company

This one pours a fairly dark black color, with a small head, and not much lacing.

This smells like dark chocolate, oatmeal cookies, licorice, a light cinnamon dusting, milk chocolate, roasted malt, caramel, and bourbon.

This is a really cool blend. When it’s a bit colder, the Rusty Nail seems to dominate a bit more, with that cookie dough, cinnamon, licorice and bourbon thing that tastes so great. The cinnamon was never super overwhelming even in fresh Rusty Nail for me, but the age on this one has allowed the cinnamon to fade and soften. As it warms, the components of the various Dark Star threads seem to come out more, especially the Sherry Dark Star, as there’s some nice mildly sweet dark fruit notes. The bourbon is caramelly, almost vanilla like, and with some pleasantly bitter notes.

This is medium bodied, with no real boozy character to it. It’s quite drinkable and creamy.

This was a really cool beer to be able to try, not sure even how many of these bottles were made.

Tried at the Denver Rare beer event. Very dark appearance with tan head that dissipates quickly. Aroma is a nice slightly sweet caramel. Taste is also a slightly sweet caramel that is well worth trying