Antik
Jackie O's Taproom & Brewery

Had at JO's scouting event in 2025. This beer was from 2017. Looked like super dark brown syrup. Had a caramel honey bourbon wood slight booze smell and taste. Held up fairly well for being 8 years old.

 

 

Pours black, very gluggy, thin head. Big bourbon smell, some sweetness. Super soft and thick mouthfeel. Taste is awesomely rich. Quite sweet, plenty of honey and bourbon, and some light umami that works well with it. Some chocolate. Dangerously easy. Yum.

Jackie O's is so good at barrel aging beers. 2017 vintage, 12.7 oz bottle poured into a snifter.
L - very dark, Minimal head disappeared almost immediately
S - bourbon and honey
T - Lots of honey upfront but the perfect blend of honey and boozyness. You can also taste the porter on the finish, which is why I don't feel this beer tastes like a mead, just a wonderfully sweet, boozy porter
F - thick mouthfeel with no carbonation
O - exceptional beer, drinking my second one and I would buy another if I found it

Antik is a beer that changed my whole outlook on the imperial and barrel aged universe. The first time I had Antik was in 2018 in the Cincinnati area. The combination of the sweet honey and dark porter turns this brew into some sort of shadow mead. The feel is quite thin, but the flavors just explode with honey at the forefront.

Jackie O's has an extremely prestigious beer collection but I put Antik at the top of all their offerings. I still have two on deck, and even though it is retired, you can find some bottles floating around the Ohio market as recent as December 2019.

A stellar beer that deserves a stellar review.

@firesidewithphil

11/3/19 bottle @ home

 

 

 

 

 

Very sweet and heavy porter. A nice representation of what it claims to be, but be prepared for the richness.

big honey porter aged in bourbon barrels in collaboration with tool, impressive stuff really, pricey yeah, but they killed it. the honey flavor is there all the way though it, but its also kind of just sweet, not as nuanced and maybe delicate as i want honey to be, and with the dark grain, it could almost just as well be molasses, not a negative here, just a reality. the body is huge, this is sticky and its boozy too, both of which seem like a lot even after drinking just a little bit of this one, but the flavor really is great, milk chocolate meets dry cocoa meets maple and toffee and rum, vanilla, and wet oak, the bourbon obvious in both aroma and flavor, very mature, and definitely with that tool/mikkeller danish sort of tolerant yeast, which i have become a fan of over the years as i have gotten more and more acquainted with beers from these guys. its not as dark as some, almost looks like a brown ale, and this doesnt go too deep on the dark grain, which has two awesome consequences. one, it lets the bourbon and the barrel char really rise up. two, it lets the honey not be taken down the dark path, it stays forward and light in this somehow. overall though there is a lot going on, and its stronger than it needs to be, fusel alcohol all over the place, i wish it was something like 9% abv and all just scaled back a bit, it would be a better beer, but its also delicious in its hugeness, and its as good as i expected it to be from two of the very best. fun stuff, get it while you can!

 

Thanks to Munson State Road Beverage in Mentor-on-the-Lake for the excellent bottle (and lots of great bottles over the years - I'm going there more lately). This is a unique, monster brew.

Although you know you are getting into something special because this is from Jackie O's (and it costs $16 for a 12.7 oz bottle) you won't really see a big deal when you open the bottle an pour. It's kind flat. Smells more like mead than porter, appropriately. But that taste and thick mouthfeel let you know that this isn't regular porter or even imperial porter. This is a special brew. They did not try too hard to make it bitter, I don't think, so it ended up very sweet. Getting bitters into this amazing thing would be pretty hard. The honey and malts mix (honey dominates). Yeasts and hops are way down in the spectrum. It's a big glass of honey brew, not quite mead. Very nice.

Highly recommended. I need to find my way back to Jackie O's and Athens. But should I do it with school on? It might scare the children to see an old OU grad.

Had on tap. Dark fruits, I'm tasting fig, dates, prunes, plums, and currants, come through with the base malt, meeting the boozy honey and chocolate-caramel elements in a rewarding fusion. Thinner than expected given the barrel, but didn't subtract from the experience. Texture has a smooth leather finish to help cut the cloying sweetness.

Pours a dark brown to black color with just a few foamy bubbles atop.

Smells very sweet in a natural way, with a well pronounced bee honey foundation, which lays ground for toffee, glazed caramel and a lighter note of molasses. Has a bakers chocolate quality, which adds a calming, earthy impression, involving a well pronounced note of warming, wooden and boozy barrel.

Drinks very silk, with an additional smoothness from the honey, which adds a sweet peak to the heavier body of the beer.

Tastes of sweet, alcohol soaked honey from the very beginning, managing to overpower the earthy chocolate foundation of the beer easily with a creamy sweetness, which only honey can bring to the palate. Offers even more sweetness then, due to caramel and molasses, finding a great balance in the oaky, warming, yet also smooth and soft, tingly bourbon barrel. Finishes with molasses enriched honey, making this very sweet, but enjoyable since the honey inherits an unforseen complexity, which lasts on the tongue a long time, due to the spicy, oaky barrel.

Best use of honey I‘ve tasted in a beer so far. This goes incredibly well with the heavier, complex base of the beer, which makes me wonder why everyone is setting their bet on maple to create a great beer instead of this. Its rich in taste, smooth, calming and almost a little thick, the honey in this makes up for a great beer.

 

2017 edition, poured from a 12.7oz bottle into a snifter
A: Very dark brown, thin head that disappears quickly
S: Honey and chocolate cake batter
T: Quite sweet. Also quite tasty. Tons of honey notes along with cocoa, caramel, bourbon and more honey on the finish
M: Full-bodied, sweet, smooth, the alcohol is well hidden
O: Definitely dessert and one to sip slowly. Quite tasty