Lafitte's Reserve
Busted Sandal Brewing Company

 

fashioned as an imperial brown on the darker side, this one is aged on rum soaked oak chips with vanilla beans, which all sounds fantastic, but it was actually my least favorite of all the beers we had in here. the alcohol is over the top, the rum is insanely sugary, and the same phenolic chemical element of the yeast profile is so intense here that the beer is barely drinkable, like i have a hard time swallowing it each time i take a sip. whatever is plaguing their beers on the fermentation side is in full form on this one, man, it comes up about halfway through and lingers longer than even the residual sugar in the slow finish. there is no getting past this element for me on this one. its a shame too, because i think the base brown is fine, robust for what it is, pushing the porter realm with a darker color and a deeper roast than a lot of browns have on the malt side. i also like the oak in here, and while i could do without the rum treatment, the wood mellows the beer nicely and adds a richness that i like. the vanilla is there too, natural and sweet like molasses at the same time, all would be pretty good if it was just fermented clean. not sure why this was an issue across so many of their beers, but its a major problem with this one, rendering it almost undrinkable...