Barrel-Aged Orange Giant
Ecliptic Brewing

2016 in 2025
Look - orangish brown and fairly clear with slight lacing
Smell and taste - tart orange with a malty toffee and barrel
Feel - medium full body almost no carb
Overall - not a fan

Full pour at brewery. I'm going to regret this. As if Orange Giant wasn't good enough. Boozy from the get go. Mahogany pour, small bubbly head. Aroma is mostly bourbon, sweet and woody. Malty, oranges in the base give way to the barrel aging. Tasty, sweet and warm. Burns all the way down. This is a nap beer.

Cellared bottle. Medium brown body with an off-white cap. Amazing barrel right away in the nose, oak is complex and bourbon is potent without being hot. Molasses, big toffee, dark fruit, light candied orange and vanilla in the nose with the barrel. Taste follow suit really hitting the toffee, vanilla and barrel up front, get notes of coconut, slight oxidation, barley, light candied orange, big molasses, decent dark fruit, and a healthy rounding out dose of brown sugar. Feel is warm with booze, luxurious, smooth and has a sneaky light dryness on the finish. Very nicely done moderate sipper of a barleywine. The wife liked it.

 

2017 vintage, from Tavour originally I believe.

This one pours a burnt but clear orange, with a small head, and not much lacing.

This smells like still somewhat hoppy after all these years, with pine and spicy orange character, with charred oak, bourbon, caramel, leather, and toffee.

I think this could continue to age even further, as the hop character is holding on by a thread here. It's faded since fresh for sure, though, with some sticky caramel, leathery and spicy oak character, a touch of bittersweet vanilla, and some definite booze to it.

This is medium bodied, relatively clean, with a very slight lingering bitterness.

I can tell this was probably a mess fresh, and it's cleared up pretty nicely. It could definitely age for another 1-2 years and continue to improve, I think.

Second BW of the eve.... yet another gift from the monster I've created - daughter Caitlin! A 0.5l bottle, at 15% ABV! Yikes!! Here goes....

My sniftah now holds a clear, richly hued brew. Has a garnet/ruby color, with a thin, light beige head. Has some surface coverage, but is mostly at the rim. Lacing has yet to take hold, being light; great color, though.... Aroma has lots of toffee/caramel action, along with intimations of candied dark fruit and, natürlich, bourbon and oak. Body is a good medium, going towards medium-plus. And his little in the way of negative prickle on the tongue.

Taste? More of the caramel/toffee combo, plus some brown sugar. Has some rindy, pithy citrus, though it's not overly bitter. Bourbon, plus oak and vanilla, come lurking in as well. The bourbon, caramel, brown sugar and resiny pine linger nicely on the palate.... Plus, it's quite warming and boozy at 15.0% ABV... Careful, Bro! Thnx, Caitlin! Cheers!

4.25/5 rDev -2.7%
look: 4.25 | smell: 4.25 | taste: 4.25 | feel: 4.25 | overall: 4.25

2248

Poured into a Fremont small snifter. Pours a lightly hazy, medium to dark reddish orange with a half finger off-white head with great retention and good lacing. Aroma of caramel malt, orange and lemon citrus, bourbon and a touch of oak. Flavor is caramel malt, mixed citrus, bourbon, oaky vanilla and aged hops. Somewhat astringent aged hops in the finish, but balanced by nice, lingering caramel and citrus. Medium bodied with moderate creaminess and fine mouth feel. Glad to revisit the Orange Giant, particularly a bourbon influenced one. Nails the American barleywine style, with good caramel, but mostly citrus fruit flavors. Great bourbon and oak barrel character. Has the aged hop character typical of vintage American barleywines that is doesn't really appeal to me as much as fresh hops and why I don't age this style any more. However, those notes are light in this fresh bottle and the base barleywine is totally winning. I love barleywine season and am glad to start it off with this fine one.

 

 

2016 edition from a 22oz bottle, thanks to my brother in law.

Burnt orange with great clarity. A thin tightly knit khaki foam quickly removes itself from the scene.

Huge boozy aroma. But underneath lies sweet caramel and toffee, cherry and plum marmalades, and a solid oakiness.

Flavor incorporates all of these with the addition of vanilla and raisins. A little bit of spice too. Bourbon is strong with this one.

Thin and sweet with tons of alcohol warmth. A sticky residual lingers around along with a snappy bitter bite.

A step up from the non BA version. Perfect cold night warmer.

Cheers.

 

$ 17.14 (Including shipping)/capped bomber ($ 0.779/oz) from Tavour, Seattle, WA.
Marked “Batch No.4, 12.2017” on the label, stored at 42 degrees and served at 60 degrees in a hand washed and dried Jester King snifter.
Appearance – 4.25.
Body – Red-amber, clear.
Head – Large (Maximum 5.3 cm, aggressive center pour), light tan, dense but fizzy, rapidly diminishing to a three mm ring and a thin partial layer resembling a face.
Lacing – None. As expected with a 13.8% ABV barrel-aged beer.
First pour – Light amber, clear.
Aroma – 4.25 - Sweet and malty, no hops. As it warms further in the glass, bourbon appears.
Flavor – 4.25 – Bourbon-forward but less sweet than the nose implied. The middle is somewhat flavorless but perhaps my taste buds are just overwhelmed by the initial burst of bourbon. The bourbon reappears at the end along with some alcohol flavor but the heat is hidden – i.e. – no gastric warming. I’m also not detecting any vanillin or other oaky flavors. No hops, no diacetyl, no dimethylsulfide.
Palate – 4 - Full, creamy, soft carbonation.
Impression and summation – 4.25 – This is a very visually-appealing drink, from the first pour to the light shining through the full snifter, the amber glow says “Drink Me! Drink me Now!” And I obeyed. I would have liked a few hops to put in an appearance, but still… The price point is not out of alignment for a brew as tasty as this. No matter how you cut it, this is a very good example of an American Barley Wine, improved by a full year of bourbon-barrel aging.

 

 

A delicious beer! My wife and I both loved it.

I went somewhere in Portland and saw that it was right by Ecliptic Brewing. I looked them up to see if anything was worth getting and this one had good reviews, albeit not that many. I stopped by and got 2 bottles, one from 2016 (batch 3) and one from 2017 (batch 4). I guess they used 12 year bourbon barrels for both batches, but they aged this 10 months in batch 3 and 12 months in batch 4. I haven't opened 3 yet but 4 was AMAZING. You can definitely taste that bourbon.

The pour left about a finger thick head which lingered a while but dissipated by the time the glass was gone. Color is lighter than I thought it would be. A beautiful dark tan. Nose reminded me a lot of BCBS, one of my favorite beers of all time. Lots of bourbon, some oak, vanilla, cherry, malt. I didn't get much orange.

Taste was great. I was surprised how much it tasted like a dark BBA stout. Don't let the lighter color fool you, the taste is deep and rich. Vanilla first, then warmth of bourbon still not much orange that I can taste. Aftertaste was strong in hops, the bitterness lingers and changes a little after you swallow.

Mouth feel was maybe a little lighter than most BA stouts, I couldn't compare it to other Barleywines because I've only had a couple.

An amazing beer. Would highly recommend.

 

 

Appearance - The beer was murky like rust water.

Smell - The nose was like a sweet barleywine backed with orange kids' cereal.

Taste - The initial impression was boozy, but not hot. There was a definite orange vanilla presence. The vanilla originated from the barrel. Sweet malts of barleywine created the backbone.

Mouthfeel - There was a definite viscosity which allowed the taste to linger.

Overall - This is a weird combination, but it really works.

 

Also batch #3 12/16. Bottle claims 13.8% ABV.

I'll be thinking about this one for awhile...

Truly awesome! One of the best beers I've ever had. Excellent barrel flavors on a nice barley wine backbone, intensified by the ABV. Nose is not as intense as taste and mostly gives you the nice barrel aromas. Little carbonation that is typical of BA beer, and is not needed.

Drank half the bottle today. It takes great strength to save the rest for tomorrow. Better than BA Bigfoot, which is saying a lot. If I had a cellar full of this, I wouldn't care about anything else, ...ever.

A brewery that can make something like this must know what they are doing. This is the only one of there's I've ever had, but I'll seek out some more.