Red Wine Barrel-Aged Red Trolley
Karl Strauss Brewing Company

Red Trolley is sort of an interesting beer on its own. Its equal parts hoppy, bitter, sweet, floral and earthy. The combo has always resonated into a pseudo smokiness for me. Weird, I know. At any rate, the normal version is a decent beer but aging it in red wine barrels is a big win. The inherent sweetness of the grapes matched with the smooth woodiness added by the barrel help tone down the flavor-backend on the beer beautifully. The result is less of a mish mash of random flavors and more of a straight up sweet earthy beer. Good stuff.