Cellar Series: Early Morning Regrets
Põhjala Brewery & Tap Room

 

 

Got this one from the Duvel guy in Utrecht

From a bottle into a snifter
Best Before: 1 October 2021
Cellar Series
Collaboration with Jing A Brewing in Beijing China
Bourbon BA Imperial Stout


APPEARANCE: Clear black pour yields a three finger, medium looking, slightly crackly, light tan head with good retention. Black body with no real carbonation evident. Head slowly fades to a decent, full cap. Splotchy wisp and ring leaving some decent lacing down the glass as it empties. Good looking.

SMELL: Woody notes, bourbon, vanilla, milk chocolate, some toffee and butterscotch, as well as some light coconut on the nose. Decent amount of oaky, wood aromas. Bold enough.

TASTE: Woody and boozy up front with lots of spirit, bourbon and oak, some vanilla flavors and milk chocolate notes up front. More bourbon at the swallow, moving into a bold and lingering finish of oak, vanilla and coconut, milk chocolate, toffee sweetness, some coffee-like roasted bitterness and boozy bourbon as well. Flavorful. Quite spirit heavy but there’s enough around it to make it work.

PALATE: Medium body and medium carbonation. A little prickly on the palate, goes down fine with a bit of a scratch at the swallow and finishes somewhat mouth-coating. A decent amount of heat lingers.

OVERALL: This is pretty good stuff. The bourbon treatment is rather up front and I can imagine that there was probably a liberal amount of bourbon left in the barrel here, but there is more than enough flavor in the base stout, and the bourbon for that matter, to make it interesting and not just spirit and wood heavy. Decent sweet flavors and a strong enough base stout to match up with it. Pohjala has had a few significant misses in their barrel aged program recently but this one looks to have put them back on track in my books. Give it a shot if you see it. Cheers!