Barrel Aged Edition - Oak Flemish Red
Big Rock Brewery

 

500ml bottle, part of a box-set trio of barrel-aged brews that cost way more than this scribe thinks is reasonable, given expectations, and all.

This beer pours a clear, bright medium red-brick brown colour, with two fingers of puffy, finely foamy, and somewhat fizzy tan head, which leaves a bit of random mitochondrial lace around the glass as it quickly evaporates.

It smells of tart red cherries, bready and doughy caramel malt, subtle vanillan barrel notes, a bit of earthy mustiness, and very, very faint leafy, weedy, and floral noble hop bitters. The taste is gritty and grainy cereal malt, some muddled red berry fruitiness, fading generic oak, more subtle under the basement stairs musty essences, and some still well-understated earthy, herbal, and dead floral 'verdant' hoppiness.

The carbonation is fairly restrained in its bored-seeming frothiness, the body an adequate middleweight, and more or less smooth, as the sour factor here is pleasant enough in its inoffensive bearing. It finishes off-dry, the malt and muted fruit character lingering with what we'll call, just for shits and giggles, 'panache'.

Overall - well, it looks like Big Rock has gone 2 for 3 in this set, at least in terms of flavour. This one certainly approximates the traditional version of the style, if in a mawkish, and obedient manner - however, as already noted by the previous BA, it is redundant to use the word 'oak' anywhere near a Flanders or Flemish red ale - it's implied, marketing dummies.

Pretty decent expression of the style, though to advertise/feature a Flemish red as “oak aged” is unnecessary double talk — all FM is oaked