Hoop And Stave No. 4 (Red Wine Barrel Aged Imperial Brown Ale)
Payette Brewing

ill stop short of calling this a disaster at this point, but thats what it really is, bacterially sour to the point of almost being red wine vinegar, unlikely it was like that when it was fresh, no date on this, but its well old by now, added here to BA over eight years go, not sure if it was made more than once, but i havent seen any bottles from these guys in years, nothing waxed and screen printed like this in longer than that, so its old to say the least, the wax is super crumbly and easy to get into. love the idea of a strong brown in red wine anyway. it pours lighter than expected, the lighter side of brown ale for sure, some carbonation and a short lived near inch of white foam thats a memory in just seconds, light haze, somewhat thin looking. smells both lactic and oxidized, infected for sure, and despite notes of tootsie roll type waxy chocolate, good tobacco, and light cocoa, along with some sharp fruity red wine notes still present, this is pretty far gone right away, and its sharp and aggressive, almost daunting to try to taste, knowing its as messed up as it is, but these are the risks we who cellar beer for a long time take, and i dont think anyone ever intended this to hold up so long. thin in feel, really acidic, but still impressively red wine forward in the flavor, which is the best i can say for this, beyond that its really degraded, some brown ale type chocolate malt, an english note in there somewhere, and i could see this being drinkable for its strength and well nuanced in its prime. blackberry and raspberry and prune from the wine, tannins and light oak, unfortunately a ton of bacterial sharpness too and some cardboard in play with the wood. like sweetened red wine vinegar overall, dry cocoa, light char and caramel, thinning and with an almost stomach acid recall. hard to bee too harsh rating a beer this old, some of is on me im sure, but nobody would want to drink a whole bottle of this at this point i am afraid! would love to track down the earliest beers from this defunct series if they are still out there, but i have concerns about all of them after this experience. gone are the days when payette was this creative...

 

Bottle from Albertsons. This one in the series didn't mesh as well as some of the others, and I'm not a huge brown ale fan anyway. The wine barrel aging didn't add too much. Lots of sediment, malty character in aroma and taste, some nutty flavors, but nothing exceptional.