Abita Bourbon Street Baltic Porter | Abita Brewing Co.

3.82/5  rDev -1.5%
look: 3.5 | smell: 4 | taste: 3.75 | feel: 4 | overall: 3.75

Poured from a growler into a MadTree snifter. The pour is a dark, hazy, murky coppery color with low carbonation and very little head (perfectly acceptable for a barrel-aged beer). The nose has sweet bready notes, toffee, hazelnuts, and bourbon.

Medium-full body with a slick feel and a very sweet flavor. Predominant flavors are sweet malt, toffee, molasses, caramel, and butterscotch candy. The oaky vanilla and bourbon notes arrive very quickly and persist to the finish. Unfortunately, the preponderance of sweet notes combined with the barrel-aging may have deprived this beer of some of the dark fruit and roasty flavors characteristic of the style. The sweetness subsides on the finish and is replaced by a fusel alcohol note that warms, but doesn't enhance the flavor or linger for long. Some roast would really enhance the finish of this beer.

I really like the opening salvo of flavors in this beer. It could almost pass for a Bourbon-Barrel-Aged English Barleywine. It's rich, sweet, syrupy, and scrumptious. Unfortunately, it's not an English Barleywine and it needs some complementary flavors such has coffee, licorice, or dark fruit to offset some of the sweetness and provide complexity. As is, the beer starts out delightfully sweet, then gets boozy and dull on the back of the palate. I'd like for some other flavors to come forward and linger a bit on the finish. The warming alcohol would enrich and enhance just about anything, but there's just nothing there. Nevertheless, this is a very good beer that I hope Abita will brew again and continue to develop.

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3.87/5  rDev -0.3%
look: 4 | smell: 3.75 | taste: 4 | feel: 3.75 | overall: 3.75

3.68/5  rDev -5.2%
look: 4 | smell: 4 | taste: 3.5 | feel: 3.25 | overall: 3.75

Pours a dark brownish-red with a tan head that quickly dissipates to leave some spotty lacing.
Aroma is full of caramel and toffee, vanilla and booze with a hint of fig and dark fruit.
The bourbon flavors override about everything else on the tongue. There is a hint of caramel but the booze and barrel are predominant.
Mouthfeel is pretty thin and a bit sticky.
Not really successful as the base beer is lost in the bourbon.

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4.52/5  rDev +16.5%
look: 4 | smell: 4.5 | taste: 4.5 | feel: 4.5 | overall: 4.75

Pours clear, dark tan with 1/4 inch head. Taste to me is more like a light English barleywine than a Baltic porter. Lots of bourbon, oak, vanilla, and toffee here. I like Abita as a whole, but I think this is right up there with the best beers I have had from them. Super enjoyable beer.

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4.23/5  rDev +9%
look: 4.5 | smell: 4.5 | taste: 4 | feel: 4.25 | overall: 4.25

3.96/5  rDev +2.1%
look: 4 | smell: 4.25 | taste: 3.75 | feel: 4 | overall: 4

2.86/5  rDev -26.3%
look: 2.5 | smell: 2.75 | taste: 3 | feel: 2.5 | overall: 3

Not a big enough beer to handle the barrel. Tastes like watery bourbon.

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3.97/5  rDev +2.3%
look: 3.75 | smell: 4.25 | taste: 4 | feel: 3.75 | overall: 3.75

A- pours a light caramel-brown color that settles into a darker brown in the glass. Finger or so of off-white head that settles into a soapy film.
S- nice! Toffee, caramel, bourbon and a hint of leather.
T- taste follows the nose with a bourbon-cola thing going on.
M- medium feel with good carbonation. Kind of thin for a big beer.
O- this is a nice BBA Porter. I would drink again.

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4.35/5  rDev +12.1%
look: 4.25 | smell: 4.25 | taste: 4.5 | feel: 4.25 | overall: 4.25

3.74/5  rDev -3.6%
look: 3.75 | smell: 4 | taste: 3.75 | feel: 3.5 | overall: 3.5

3.79/5  rDev -2.3%
look: 3.75 | smell: 4 | taste: 3.75 | feel: 3.5 | overall: 3.75

Bourbon aroma. Dry and dark brown. Ok drinkability.aggressive finish a bit boozy.

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3.46/5  rDev -10.8%
look: 3.25 | smell: 3.5 | taste: 3.5 | feel: 3.25 | overall: 3.5

More brown than black, with a strong vanilla aroma that is not reflected on the palate. Rather, the flavor is predominantly toffee, and the mouthfeel is quite thin for a barrel-aged beer. Intense flavors, just not very well rounded nor nuanced. Similarly, I fell the lack of hop-presence fell short for te style.

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3.75/5  rDev -3.4%
look: 3.75 | smell: 3.75 | taste: 3.75 | feel: 3.75 | overall: 3.75

4.25/5  rDev +9.5%

3.77/5  rDev -2.8%
look: 3.5 | smell: 4 | taste: 3.75 | feel: 3.5 | overall: 3.75

5/5  rDev +28.9%

4.92/5  rDev +26.8%
look: 4.5 | smell: 5 | taste: 5 | feel: 4.5 | overall: 5

Best bourbon beer I've ever had

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4.25/5  rDev +9.5%

3.83/5  rDev -1.3%
look: 4 | smell: 4 | taste: 3.75 | feel: 3.75 | overall: 3.75

I was really surprised by just how much bourbon this took from the barrel but it's almost like boilermaker. Light fudgey chocolate malt body with a thinner feel. It finishes with a more alcohol laden whiskey taste. It's an enjoyable beer if this is your sort of thing.

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4/5  rDev +3.1%
look: 4 | smell: 4 | taste: 4 | feel: 4 | overall: 4

4.03/5  rDev +3.9%
look: 3.5 | smell: 4.25 | taste: 4 | feel: 4 | overall: 4

2.93/5  rDev -24.5%
look: 2.75 | smell: 3.5 | taste: 2.75 | feel: 2.75 | overall: 2.75

Very thin, light bodied porter. The barrel was not well integrated leaving it very unbalanced and falling short of expectations.

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4/5  rDev +3.1%

3.5/5  rDev -9.8%

3.74/5  rDev -3.6%
look: 3.5 | smell: 3.75 | taste: 3.75 | feel: 3.75 | overall: 3.75

Bottle: Poured a deep hazy brown color porter with a medium size dark brown foamy head with light retention and minimal lacing. Aroma of chocolate and deep caramelized malt with some residual sugar notes and bourbon notes. Taste is quite sweet with some residuals sugar notes, some chocolate notes and some vanilla and bourbon notes with light woody notes. Body is quite full with good carbonation and light warming alcohol notes. Not bad but a bit too sweet and cloying for my taste.

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