Bourbon Barrel-Aged Chocolate Expedition Stout
Bell's Brewery - Eccentric Café & General Store

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

12oz bottle poured into Tyranena snifter glass. The bottled on date is 12/09/21 .

Served straight out of the fridge at fridge temperature.

Appearance: black bodied stout. Big and thick head with foamy and dense bubbles. Spotty lacing. Booze legs present as well.

Smell: roasty malt, big chocolate note, oak, and bourbon.

Taste: Big roasty malt. Dark chocolate and really, really dry cocoa nibs. Dry oak and hint of sweet bourbon. Little hint of vanilla in the finish attempting to balance out the dry bitterness of the cocoa nibs. Yet his stout pushes towards the line of being way too dry... It needs some balance here. I like what they were trying to do here, but Bells got a little bit heavy handed on cocoa nibs. As this warms up to room temperature, the beer seems to clean itself up quite a bit and balance out significantly. This really was the only saving grace here to make it a pretty decent barrel aged stout to drink. My advice, don't drink this straight out of the fridge. It really needs cellar temp or warmer to be an enjoyable beer.

Mouthfeel: medium bodied beer with low and adequate carbonation levels. Really dry finish. Not boozy. It's definitely a sipper because of the high dryness levels.

Overall: They must have used a colossal amount of coco nibs because the dryness level of the chocolate in this beer is just massive. This could use a little bit more balance. It needed the time to open up and balance out for sure. Huge improvement from flavors straight out of the fridge. I am a huge fan of barrel aged expedition and this one could have been a little better executed. Still a good variant of barrel aged expedition. Could have been better though. This might be a good stout to spend some time in the cellar to mellow out the cocoa nibs.

 

 

Interestingly the head is a lighter khaki in comparison to regular ba expeditions deep beige/brown head. The fluid is so inky, so dark. Soo oily.

Smell is fantastic. Absolutely fantastic. It's every bit normal ba expo with maybe a little less roast coming through and certainly a more perceivable sweetness. Getting an almost imperial cream stout vibe from this. Super imperial.

Oh wow. Taste... is simply decadent. What I was onto with the nose is entirely accurate in the taste. The classic ba expedition hoppiness is ever so slightly scaled down and replaced with sweetness. Make no fucking mistake though, this is no pastry stout. Nor even close to comparable to a syrupy bcbs or deths tar. Those beers are great in their own right, but so one dimensional in compariosn to ba expo with their dominating dark fruit profile that lacks the roast and complexity of bells doing.

This beer is just so remarkably balanced and mature, just like its non chocolate brother.

As far as the "chocolate" in this beer that's a unique adjunct to add to ba expo as the base is already SPEWING with dark bitter chocolate. This variation, while still heavy on the bakers cocoa is leans a little more reminiscent of milk chocolate in the flavors with the extra touch of sweetness.

The barrel and bourbon is hot and sharp and there's no missing it in compared to a non barrel aged expedition (also a great beer). Definitive flavors of dry oak are present reminding me of the dry oaky taste and feel of elijah craig barrel proof. I'd be very interested to know what barrels this was aged in.

Feel is just stellar. You really can't improve on the way this feel engulfs your mouth and senses.

Overall I constantly say that normal BA expo is one of the best beers in the world. I like it over so many one off, limited whale stouts and belive blindly it would go head to head with many, many stouts people pay a vailla rye unit or double for. This variant I would argue is equally as good as ba expo, a SLIGHTLY different drink in its sweeter profile - equal, no better no worse. And that says a fucking lot.

Outstanding!