Wood Worker The Crooked Path
Baerlic Beer Company

16-ounce can purchased at Baerlic's southeast brewery/taproom. Date stamp is unreadable, but the label shows a vintage date of "2022". Enjoyed in an English tulip-style half-pint glass.

Look:
Dark, dark brown with mahogany highlights at the edges. A confident pour yields a finger-tall head the color and visual texture of the middle of a 3 Musketeers bar. (They still make those, right?) The foam shrinks to a stubborn ring that doesn't leave more than a few isolated scraps of lacing.

Smell:
Dark chocolate and bourbon, followed by coconut. There's also a bit of dark roasted malt, a hint of soy, and a delicious smoky note. Not too sweet.

Taste:
Follows the nose faithfully. Starts with dark chocolate that has a mild fruity tang to it (cherry and a little blackberry). Coconut arrives next, followed by bourbon, umami, and a kiss of salt. Vanilla is in there too, but you have to dig a little for it. (I'm good with that. I prefer coconut to vanilla in my stouts.) Again, it's not too sweet. There's a brief fling of nutty flavor after the bourbon and before the dark chocolate comes to the front in the finish. Good bitterness keeps the beer grounded. Not like Old Rasputin, but certainly enough to remind you that despite the vanilla and coconut, The Crooked Path is not a dessert stout. Excellent.

Feel:
Medium-full body, with a nice silky texture. Just enough carbonation to give it some teeth. (This is a good thing.) Bourbon and alcohol provide a shade too much heat in the finish.

Overall:
The name may be "crooked," but this beer is largely a straightforward American imperial stout with some tasty additives but no aspirations to "pastry stout" status. The beer has good barrel character, tasty vanilla and coconut presence (not in that order), and gratifying bitterness for those of us who don't need our imperial stouts to have more sugar than a Starbucks frappuccino. Well done, Baerlic. I may nab another can to see this beer's progress next year.

Poured into a Fremont small snifter. Pours a very dark mahogany brown, appearing nearly opaque in the glass with a fine, one finger milk chocolate head with great retention and solid lacing. Aroma of dark toasted malt, milk chocolate, bourbon, vanilla and coconut; inviting. Flavor is dark toasted malt with minimal char, bourbon, dark chocolate, vanilla, coconut and a little hop bitterness in the finish. Medium bodied with moderate, velvety creaminess. Looks great right from the start and has an aroma integrating all the ingredients on the label: barrel bourbon, vanilla and coconut, along with nice chocolate notes. Flavor follows the aroma, but the bourbon is a bit more forward. The vanilla gives this a character that seems almost like an imperial milk stout, smooth and deceptively soft. The mouthfeel is excellent, with a solid creaminess that accentuates the flavors. There is a light bitterness in the finish that interacts with the bourbon to give it a slight medicinal note at the end, but that grew on me as I drank it. One of the better barreled stouts I've had, impressive. The can is dated 2022 on the front, but the date stamp is Dec. 2023, so I'm guessing this is a 2022 brewing of the base stout with canning a year later. That aging was well done. I'll be watching for this one next year.