Barrel Project 18.01
Brouwerij Kees

 

 

330ml bottle - a Bourbon barrel-aged, 'Imperial Russian Stout'.

This beer pours a solid black abyss, with the barest of basal amber edges, and a thin cap of wispy and bubbly brown 'head', which leaves a few instances of remote islet lace around the glass as things slowly progress.

It smells of roasted, and somewhat meaty bready and doughy caramel malt, real vanilla, wet barrel staves, bittersweet cocoa powder, a bit of burnt rubber, day-old coffee grounds, and a faint dark earthy fruitiness. The taste is gritty and grainy caramel malt, some free-range ashiness, dry chocolate, cafe-au-lait where the milk has gone off, singed plastic, some boozed-up oaken woodiness, alcohol-steeped raisins, and a mild earthy licorice astringency.

The carbonation is average in its palate-satiating frothiness, the body a decent medium weight, and not particularly smooth, with a kitchen sink of gullet-pinging unpleasantness seeing to that. It finishes trending dry, the roast and alcohol most prominent, I think.

Overall - gah, gag me with a pitchfork. No, wait, that job has already been accomplished here, as this is one hot mess. Lots of flavours, sure (notice how I didn't say 'flavour'), but there is no cohesion, barely any of the typically heady elements are integrated, as one might expect. It's not truly awful, but I expect more from these guys.

0.33l bottle.
Bourban barrel aged.