Bourbon Barrel Antiquity
DESTIHL Brewery

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rye and licorice. Pretty good. Kinda hot too.

 

drank this with my lady on the lot before the long strange trip movie at red rocks last night. it was a perfect beer to buzz up and warm up for a great show. we spit the bottle evenly into two stemmed glasses, and the head on both rose almost over the rim, off white and rising like a volcanic eruption. it lingers the whole time, and left amazing pillowy thick crema foam all around the edges of the glass. the base beer is a rich indian brown to mahogany color, and has a strong nose of zesty spicy rye malt, sweet oak and vanilla, and old almost stale english caramel malt, its boozy and heavy, but it smells amazing. even with all the general malt sweetness, the slight oxidation, the sturdy alcohol presence, and woody whiskey, i still taste the rye malt above everything else, which i love. its not so dry and pale as it normally is, and the sweetness of molasses and raisin here seem to almost bring the rye more forward. the barrel treatment smoothes the usual roughness of the rye in the feel, so we have the flavor without much of the texture, this is a big taffy thick chewy barleywine type that is smooth as can be. light cocoa, burnt cigar, toffee, and sweet dates in the finish, with as much oak as whiskey, some hop bitterness too even coming on late, not much it can do to balance, but it tries. awesome beer overall, leagues better than the base beer alone, the barrel adds a lot to this! thanks to my man in chicago for the hookup!