Bourbon Barrel Old Ale (Barrel Room Series)
West Sixth Brewing Company

 

 

Subtle barrel characteristics at first with touches of oak and bourbon. Turns sweet with chocolate malts, toffee, maple and butterscotch. Tinges of alcohol invade the palate as it finishes with fig and dark fruit.

 

Woven in a bourbon-flavored cocoon, the toffee and maple sweet British-style ale carries a nuance of apricot and peach for a subtle jammy taste to balance the broad and woodsy bitterness of hops with a smooth finish of butterscotch, vanilla and oak.

Its masculine hues of hazy rust and garnet carry a delicate ecru froth with the savory aromatics of maple, toffee, stone fruit, bourbon and sherry. Its taste is lavishly sweet with caramelized malts of the toffee, molasses, chocolate and maple ilk.

Its sweet and dessert-like palate slathers the tastebuds with its decadence in earthy sorghum, honey, molasses, chocolate, toast, nutty and coffee-like tastes. Apricot, prune, date and fig bleed into a tangy vinous taste of sherry and madeira. Caramels from bourbon share their vanilla, coconut and spicy booze character with hints of toasted oak, leather and tobacco closing the show.

Rich, lightly creamy and weighted on the palate, the beer's texture is full but shy of cloying or chewy. Warming to the texture, the beer's bourbon warmth breaks up the malty-rich body and offers the much-needed reprieve in drinkability in the beer's waning moments with an after tow of bourbon and maple.