Hailes Bailes Gruit (Barrel Aged)
Country Boy Brewing

 

 

 

Their gruit pours a largely frothless garnet-brown with a boggish hazy gaze. With dense aromatics that range from freshly toasted spice cake, molasses, toast, chocolate, coffee and peat; its Scottish roots are firmly intact. With the flavors saturating the tastebuds, the striking resemblance of root beer soda and horehound candy are uncanny.

In seemingly the land before time, barley-malted alcoholic beverages were made without the use of hops. Prior to their discovery in beer, the search for balance of malt sweetness came in many forms, and this ale becomes our time capsule to the past although its bourbon character drags us back to the present, kicking and screaming.

Dark bronze and briefly adorned with a gentle swirl of coffee-like creme, the ale's aromatics are robust with brown sugar, maple and molasses while its spicy counterpart is rootish and earthy. As its lavish cola-like and bourbony sweetness slaters on the palate, its tepid carbonation allows for full saturation of residual sugars.

Its rich and sweet center is of lingering burnt sugars, nutty, toasty, coffee-like flavors. Rebuttal of spice charges in with a host of herbal earthiness- peppercorn, aniseed, sarsaparilla, heather tips and chicory. But the sweet and spicy flavors are all wrapped in a cocoon of bourbon, releasing the vanilla, charred oak and refined booziness along the way.

Fullish in texture, the slim carbonation leaves a long, sweet, and savory taste on the palate. With the earth of peat-smoked malt, bog and leather highlighting the finish; its bourbony warmth keeps the session spicy to accessorize its persistent sweetness.

On draft this highlights the rum from the barrel without giving away and alcohol taste. It tends chocolatey before I get herbal tones of sassafras, ginger, anise, caraway and Heather. At times it had a bit of fruity citrus. Well done and certainly interesting.