Barrel-Aged Porter 2017
Blindman Brewing

 

 

Pours dark brown with thin mocha head. Smells good - toasty caramel malt, chocolate. Taste of mildly bittersweet chocolate, toasty/burnt caramel, slightly earthy. A bit thin on the palate - finish is smooth but not memorable - decently drinkable but hurt badly by the expectations of “barrel aged” pricing for an average porter.

From the can - "barrel aging is more of an art than a science." This is a good beer, no doubt, I just expect more complexity and depth when I pay this much for a beer. I love Blindman in oh so many ways, but they are still working on their barrel game, in my opinion.

 

473ml can, their Robust Porter aged in the same double-oaked Bourbon barrels that they used for their Imperial Stout.

This beer pours a fairly solid black, with some subtle amber basal edges, and three fingers of puffy, rocky, and chunky tan head, which leaves some decent layered snow rime lace around the glass as it quickly sinks away.

It smells of vanilla-forward wet wood, lightly roasted bready and doughy caramel malt, bittersweet cocoa powder, mild cafe-au-lait notes, a bit of anise spice, further free-agent char, and some very subtle earthy, musty, and floral hop bitters. The taste is gritty and grainy caramel malt, a sort of acrid woodsiness, dried vanilla pods, day-old coffee, stale chocolate, a bitter, and sort of meaty smoky essence, and more understated earthy, leafy, and floral green hoppiness.

The carbonation is pretty weak in its sanguine-seeming frothiness, the body a so-so medium weight, and not particularly smooth, with that tacky woody character kind of hovering about, up to no good. It finishes trending dry, with the toasty esters continuing to run the asylum.

Overall - this certainly comes across as something that has spent a good deal of time touching wood, in the literal sense. The various bitter notes really stand out, especially as it warms. Complex? Yeah. Integrated? Not so much, I'm afraid to say.