Keyrock
3 Floyds Brewing Co.

 

Look - black thick great tan head and fantastic rimming and lacing
Smell -chocolate rye barrel slight spice
Taste -just like the smell with a slight booze
Feel -thick and creamy with a medium light carb
Overall - fantastic beer. Really does taste a lot like the base with just that rye barrel added

I don’t have a lot to add to those others who’ve reviewed this beer rather eloquently, but I am certainly in agreement that this is one of the best DL variants. Right up there with Handjee. I personally think regular DL is too much on the sweet side, and the rye cuts that sweetness and makes this a bottle that I could dome easily, whereas the reg I could barely finish half. I LOVED this.

Glossy black with a dark tan head of moderate height that retains surprisingly well for the treatment and overall results.

Quite warming and mildly spicy, the casking cuts right through the expected chocolate covered cherry sweetness, while helping to unveil an accent of smoked almond.

It's immensely drinkable despite this mature expression, consisting of a medium, lightly viscous body that's lifted by a very well-balanced carbonation before coming to a commendably semi-dry finish.

Keyrock is one of the more barrel forward Dark Lords I've had, and it's a damn sight better both than I expected, AND than the previous Hung Drawn and Quartered variant, which has me wondering why, but also thanking my lucky stars I pulled this during last year's drive-thru DLD. This is made all the more pronounced by the fact that it held its own up against BBT 2019, and perhaps even prevailed.

 

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

This smells like milk chocolate truffles, black cherry, creamy sweet coffee, rye spice, caramel, and vanilla.

Rye barrels are a really good friend to the Dark Lord base, as the drying spice and leathery qualities really help to mellow out the big sweetness of the base beer. That heavy spice, bittersweet caramel, and leather sit very well on the dark fruit and coffee heavy stout underneath. There's also vanilla cream, oak, black cherry, raisin, and brown sugar.

This is pretty thick, and pretty creamy, with very little booziness, surprisingly.

This is definitely a top tier Dark Lord variant. The barrel choice is pretty much perfect for the kind of stout that Dark Lord is.

Appearance - The beer poured the deep black color of Dark Lord with a bubbly tan head crowning the pour.

Smell - I was surprised by the sweetness in the nose considering the lack of crazy adjuncts. The rye was noted.

Taste - The thick molasses sweetness of Dark Lord was strong despite the variants. Fruit leather and rye were noted. I was surprised to detect something akin to cotton candy. Even with this, the beer was not overly sweet. Toward the back, the rye shined leaving an almost dry aftertaste.

Mouthfeel - The carbonation was long ago suffocated out of this stout to create smooth sweet motor oil.

Overall - Dark Lord in a barrel without any adjuncts can be great.

poured from a 750mL bottle into a snifter. pours a thick, motor oil black with an extremely thin dark cocoa-colored head. smells of your typical DL - dark fruit, sugary sweetness, chocolate - all subdued by the barrel-aging process. also get some nice, spicy rye barrel to go along with that. i have no problem with regular DL, but the barrel-aging process rounds out and smooths out any “rough edges” that regular DL may hold. spicy rye, chocolate, coffee, dark fruits and a subdued sugary sweetness on the taste. it’s just not as cloyingly sweet as the base DL is. super thick mouthfeel as is pretty much always the case with DL. really, a tremendous variant. BA variants just do not need any extra sweetening adjuncts (coconut, vanilla, etc) and the barrel-aging does a lot of justice to the base beer.