Chernobly IV - Barrel Aged with Coffee & Peanut Butter
Mirror Twin Brewing

Some light getting through at the edges. I decided to give it a try since the barrel aging came with coffee and peanut butter. I will say it's easier than some barrel-aged beers I've had. I'm not one for bourbon barrel beers to begin with. There is an astringent quality to this one, though, because of a relatively thin mouth feel that is not great. It's ok, I'd be curious what the non barrel-aged version with coffee and peanut butter tastes and feels like.

When your neighbors are Nate’s Coffee and JIF Peanut Butter factory, its hard not to find those flavors into you celebration beer. And when that beer is an Imperial Barrel-Aged Stout and the celebration is your fourth year in existence, it’s a party just waiting to happen.

Pitch black and sitting in the glass like tar, the Peanut Butter and Coffee laden Barrel Aged Chernobly floats a dense but short blanket of tarnish foam while seducing the senses with the lavish scent of espresso, chocolate, peanut butter sweet liquor spice, caramel, vanilla, port and toasted oak. That verbose perfume precedes a malty-sweet upstart of blackstrap molasses, brownie batter, toffee coconut and caramel to seduce the tastebuds early and often.

As the decadent stout nestles onto the middle palate, the sweetness proves sticky and withstanding while the not-so-subtle nuances of peanut butter offer it nutty, buttery and smooth candied sweetness to accentuate the malt. But some balance comes from Nate’s coffee with an expressive roast flavor that’s remiss of campfire, soil and char that provides an offset to sweetness for a bitter, earthy and spicy dryness on the late palate.

While whisky nuances of caramel, char, oak and coconut play out on the finish, a long and lavish aftertaste of bittersweet chocolate, kahlua spice and espresso keep the dessert-like tendencies flowing for yet another year.