Interiority
Trap Door Brewing

500 mL bottle purchased at the Trap Door taproom in Vancouver, WA. Bottled 12/2025. Enjoyed in a snifter.

Look:
The dark brown body is right next door to black, and has deep reddish-brown highlights. It briefly sports a thin disk of cocoa brown foam which quickly shrinks to a buff colored ring and a skin like a tenuous dark nebula in the void.

Smell:
Dark chocolate. No, wait...vanilla. No, it's cocoa powder on a thick slice of toasted brown bread that's still moist and chewy in the middle. Slightly burnt caramel. Oak, vanilla, a low thrum of bourbon. Sweet at first, but it turns a bit drier and earthy as it warms.

Taste:
Sweet, but not quite obnoxiously so. Chocolate and vanilla grab the spotlight early and hog it until the curtain drops. Dark chocolate and black cherries up front. Then the bourbon catches up. Oak, booze, vanilla, and toasted marshmallows lead into devil's food cake, fudge, and charred malt. A brief interlude of caramel-drizzled graham crackers. Hints of prunes and raisins. The finish is more dark chocolate, bourbon, and instant Vietnamese coffee.

Feel:
Full-bodied and velvety, with understated carbonation. Smoother than a Lou Rawls greatest hits collection. A dull flare of alcohol heat in the finish.

Overall:
The chocolate is behind the wheel, and vanilla sits shotgun. The base stout and bourbon are in the back seat. I think I'd like this better if the group switched seats. Still, it's not too sweet, and the feel is luxurious, and I'm happy with the amount of barrel character. Really nice beer, would drink again.

On tap at the Taps Beer Reserve. This is the new 2026 edition.

The beer pours the expected blackish brown color with decent lacing and good head retention. This beer looks slightly viscous. On the nose I'm picking up considerable vanilla, coffee, dark chocolate and bourbon. The flavor profile replicates the nose pretty closely in this moderately sweet impy stout. This is a pretty impressive stout, frankly. It's also a full bodied stout, with a long, boozy finish. The alcohol is pretty well integrated into the flavor profile, but you can definitely tell the abv. is up there.

Really impressed by this. Trap Door has amped up the alcohol considerably in this 2026 version, but it's still pretty well balanced (relatively speaking). Well done.

 

 

 

Thanks to Sharpski for this one. 16oz bottle (uncertain vintage) poured into 12oz tulip. Poured a solid black color with just a thin cap of tan head that quickly dissipated into a thin ring, and left no lacing.

The aroma was rum forward, with some whiskey and barrel aspects in support. The base beer seemed to be a fairly solid example.

Same on the tongue, with the rum being even more dominant.

The body was fairly typical, maybe a bit on the thin side of typical, but not by a lot, smooth, and had a sweet finish that dried out after a few moments.

Drinkability was nice, smooth and even, without too much heat.

Overall, a nice take on the style. Worth grabbing if you see it.

 

16 fl. Oz. can
Served in a snifter

This beer pours black and is topped with a scant, deep mocha head.

The aroma is chocolate, coffee, anise, caramel, vanilla, It is quite exquisite.

Chocolate, coffee, caramel, vanilla, and anise is also in the flavor. Alcohol begins to become noticeable as it warms.

Full bodied with a smooth ass mouthfeel

Excellent barrel aged stout. The abv was hidden until I started feeling the effects.

Prominent Whiskey aroma with a tinge of sweetness. Very dark pour. Boozy for sure but as it warms, the whiskey mellows and notes of chocolate, vanilla, caramel and so much more begin to emerge. This is so rich and smooth.

Can / Snifter glass / Biscuits and gravy pairing

 

 

 

 

Look: only black pour with thin medium brown head that disappeared quickly.

Smell: vanilla comes through strongly with single sweetness, caramel and whiskey from the barrel.

Taste: this is where it flops for me a bit. It's balanced and layered and the vanilla smooths it out nicely but there's a sourness like lactic acid that I don't like and the way this beer lingers on the palate I'm not a fan of. Alcohol is well hidden.

Mouthfeel: medium body, smooth, low carbonation.

Overall: not bad but not sure I'd buy it again. I love vanilla but I have yet to find a beer that uses it to perfection.

26.9oz/500mL bottle purchased in January at Community Pint, in Spokane, WA, for $11.99. Apparently, this is "an Imperial Stout aged inside rum and whiskey barrels from House Spirits for 6months, conditioned on Madagascar vanilla beans and roasted cacao nibs." No freshness date, but at 11.5% abv, I'm not particularly concerned.

Poured into a snifter, this was the black of nightmares had by the black hearted. A rough pour yielded only a smallish tan head that.quickly fled, though a thin, tan band remained behind. Spotty, streaky lace.

Boozy, and oaky, with less a nasal hit from the vanilla than I was expecting, which is okay. Also, a faint nuttiness I can't quite define.

Whoa! This is big and smooth. Roasty dark malts giving off chocolatey and molasses-like flavors, sweet vanilla notes from both the beans and the oak barrels (and with an impressive amount of restraint when it comes to the former; too many times when vanilla is an adjunct it's added with a heavy hand - not here), whiskey and rum notes just present I the background, along with subtle dark fruit notes. Some pipe tobacco notes, as well (from someone who once regularly smoked a pipe). The richness and balance of this beer is incredible. Finish is.very slightly dry

Medium-full bodied, with a mouthfeel both creamy and velvety.

Wow. My first from Trap Door, and definitely not my last. For a fairly new brewery, this is a tremendous introduction, and it's immediately become one of my favorite barrel aged Imperial Stouts. I just hope there's still some bottles left where I bought this!

Poured into a Fremont small snifter. Pours a very dark mahogany brown, appearing opaque black in the glass with a thin, medium brown head that dissipates to patches with light lacing. Aroma of dark toasted malt, dark chocolate, molasses, light whiskey and dark fruit. Flavor follows with dark toasted malt with slight char, black strap molasses, mild oak, dark and milk chocolate, light whiskey and a hint of fruitiness from rum. Medium bodied with light creaminess. A robust barreled stout with great malt depth and chocolate flavor, whiskey and rum notes are noticeable, but subdued. Very rich with the ABV well covered. Nicely done. Impressive introduction to this brewery.