Death Star 4 - Smoke Wagon Rye
Barreled Souls Brewing Company

Sampling a cellar temp 330 ml bottle poured into my snifter. Beer was bottled on 4/29/2024, picked up at the brewery during one of my visits over the past 1.5 years.
Beer pours a deep mahogany color and a little garnet red shows on the edges of the glass when held to a light source. Minimal khaki colored head foams up about 0.5 cm and fades to a sturdy edge layer soon after the pour. The edging remains for most of the sampling. Some scattered lattice forms on my glass when I take a sip.
the aroma on this beer is malt driven, I get some brown sugar and pipe tobacco mixing with charred wood and a bit of toffee. Some mild dark fruit, but the charred wood buries that quickly. Never any hop character showing on the nose.
First sip reveals a medium body and slightly chewy texture, definitely a little coating on my lips with each sip. Carbonation is fine and gentle and almost non-existent on my palate.
Flavor is similar to the nose with malt forward character. Some sweet brown sugar and raisin notes mix with a bit of sweet and sort of spicy booze note. Not as much charred wood as I would have expected from the nose, but it is buried in the background. Never hops on flavor profile either. Booze comes through with some warming on the swallows.
This is a tasty big beer that has some sweetness but also depth of flavor profile. This is something I am enjoying quite a bit and would gladly drink again.

This one pours a dark golden brown color, with a small head, quickly dissipating, and no lacing.

This smells like molasses, rolos, rye bread, heavy barrel char, maple, chocolate, and lots of oak.

This is very complex and delicious. There’s a lot going on here and a lot to pick out. There’s a distinct spicy and heavy duty rye character to this. It’s very woody and very oaky, and very charred, with a definite heat coming off this. Weirdly, as it warms, the heat integrates a bit more and comes off sweeter and more balanced. The booziness fading as the beer warms is definitely not the usual way things work with these beers. There’s a flavor almost like pecan glaze, with definite maple, molasses, Rolos candy, honeycomb, walnut, and chocolate. There’s also a faint cereal like flavor – like, if Caramel Wheaties were a cereal, that’s what this would kind of taste like. It definitely smells boozier and hotter than it actually tastes.

This is pretty sweet, but tempered well with the barrel characteristics adding charred and oaky bitterness. This is creamy, on the cliffs edge of syrupy.

I’m really excited to try the other beers in this set after having this one – it was excellent.