Kentucky 20th Anniversary Ale
Alltech's Lexington Brewing and Distilling Co.

750 ml wax capped bottle, bottle #684. Served in a chalice, the beer pours a mostly clear amber/copper color with about an inch or so off-white head that stayed around for a long time. There's also a lot of lacing. Aroma is nice but a bit muted, it smells like vanilla, bourbon, bready malt and caramel. Taste is similar to the aroma for the most part (luckily stronger), but there's also the addition of some dried stone fruit and toffee flavors. I do wish the bourbon character in this brew was stronger in both the taste and aroma. Mouthfeel/body is medium, it's creamy and a bit coating with a moderate amount of carbonation. It's also smooth and pretty easy to drink. I thought it was an enjoyable sweeter tasting brew, but then I do like their regular bourbon barrel ale so I'm not surprised I liked this one too. Worth picking up if you're a fan of their beers.

 

 

Rare anymore I have a chance to add a beer here. Picked this up today driving through lexington and saw this while checking out. Not sure on availability but both the label and the cap under the wax were hand numbered.

Anyway the note is that this is "extended aged ale" meaning it spent even more time in barrels than the standard bourbon ale.

A - Pretty much your standard kentucky bourbon ale. Amber color, creates a lot of head but it doesn't last long. Light lacing.

S - vanilla over berries and then herbal grass notes. Then you get toffee and somewhat aged sugars and caramels. I really was expecting more bourbon and oak though unlike the older bottlings of kentucky bourbon barrel, this was aged in Town Branch Barrels and to be frank, that is not a good bourbon nor is it one I'd want to age a quality beer in. As a result I somewhat get that those barrels are a bit of lower quality than past kentucky ale's (I'm sure they use these for all their stuff now but I haven't had a kentucky ale in many years).

T. This is vanilla forward for sure. There aren't any indications of hops, just sweetness from the barrels and the natural the strong ale elements. Toffee, butter scotch, grass, amber malts, vanilla, some berry notes, light toast (maybe from the barrel?).

Overall this is a decent beer, it's about 12 or 13 bucks. I wouldn't buy it again, but it was a fun one off. I don't think they got any benefit from extended aging and that's a shame because I feel they have done longer barrel aging before and actually got a better beer out of it. I think the switch to their own bourbon barrels is hurting them here. At the same time, it's pretty cool to see a beer aged in their own bourbon barrels. For that novelty alone I somewhat want to score this one higher.