PB King - Bourbon Barrel-Aged
3 Sons Brewing Company

2019 vintage (released on 10/19/19, so presumably bottled within a few days of that date); consumed on 5/3/21

Pours a clean black body, moderately viscous and capped with a slowly forming, quickly fading head of paper-thin, dark khaki foam; a sparse few islands of equally thin cap hold along the surface as a rich, creamy, moderate collar and splotches of temporary, webby lacing mark the outer edges and walls of the glass.

Aroma opens with rich, nutty peanut butter sporting a slight char and the underlying ease of Nilla wafer; chocolate cake mix, brownie crust, and walnut over the middle culminate with a peanuty pound cake richness; dessert-laden bouquet with edged excesses and a vague touch of malty bourbon tickling the senses.

Taste features oily cacao meeting prickly oak barrel upfront as soft vanilla cream develops into a creamy peanut butter mid-palate; young bourbon ushers in charry malts and a dusting of bittersweet cacao on the back end, followed by a bourbon barrel tingle, residual peanut oils, and burnt vanilla bean on the finish.

Mouthfeel shows a medium-full body with a low-moderate, tingly carbonation; a thinning mid-palate maintains a mild-moderate char feeding into an increasingly taut dryness, composed with an evenly dispersed boozy profile across the back half of the palate for a steady and deceptive warmth lingering past the swallow.

These rampant excesses persist even over a year and a half after bottling, rendering the barrel a decided weak point in a stout most comfortable on the sweeter side of the spectrum; while immediately decadent and appealing, many aspects of this one are just too young and unrefined, leaving minimal cohesion between a wavering malt profile and the bold, flavor-forward adjuncts.