Bourbon Barrel Aged Black Eagle
Angry Scotsman Brewing

I've liked some of Angry Scotsman beers, but this was disgusting. Stouts and porters are my favorite, and its probably the first time I've poured one out. Taste like cardboard with some molasses but not enough to cover up the chalky bitterness. Im guessing it was a rye barrel but left out in the sun. It was just gross.

12 fl oz pull-tab can (nabbed in 4-pack format at Biergarten Wine & Spirits, Jenks, Oklahoma for $26.99 USD plus tax - ouch!):

"Bourbon barrel-aged imperial stout." 10.1% ABV. 75 IBUs. Aged 18 months according to the label, though the label doesn't specify in which barrels or from which distillery.

HEAD: ~2cm in height. Dark tan in colour. Ungilded. Not vibrant. ~2 minute retention at best.

BODY: Opaque black, as is to be expected.

Appears well carbonated.

AROMA: Leather, caramel, booze, dark malt sweetness.

Promises a boozy stout with a weak base and an unimpressive barrel character. Not getting any coconut, rye, vanilla/vanillin, or rich white oak.

TASTE & TEXTURE: Rather off-putting, to be frank. Lumpy, boozy, leathery, and generally unapproachable mouthfeel-wise.

I get leather, caramel, subdued chocolate malt, generic dark malt sweetness, and...well, that's about it. No rich white oak, toasted wood, vanillin/vanilla, or coconut from the bourbon barrel. Just booze, heat, and high residual sugars bleeding in. Poorly attenuated; poorly (im)balanced. I'm not liking what I'm tasting, and it fails in terms of both base beer and barrel.

Finishes a bit vomit-inducing, rife with heat and sludgy caramel. Ugh, this would be an abysmal nightcap. What a joke at ~$7 a can. Fuck me for buying this and supporting this dreadful effort...it's quite poorly done, even giving the brewers the benefit of the doubt.

18 months in barrels? In what, barrels from the cheapest distillery they could find with aging done in a warehouse that wasn't temperature controlled?

Its sludgyness is incredibly off-putting, and its flavour is pretty rough as well. Real tough to drink as a result...sort of a poster child of how a bourbon barrel aged stout shouldn't be executed. Harsh on the palate and poorly done; just a failure across the board. Honestly, I'm a bit appalled this made it through QC.

I dread finishing off the remaining 3 cans (even with help from stout-loving friends) and were the store not over an hour away, I'd honestly consider returning this. Maybe a credit card chargeback is in order?

The worst Oklahoma beer I've tried while living in Oklahoma, and (not to be a prick, but...) that's saying something.

I'm almost retching just trying to finish one can, and I'm a guy who's happily had over 12,000 different beers (most of them already logged on this website - just look). This is just poor fare, and I'd caution anyone reading this from exchanging legal tender for it. I'd turn it down if it were free. I consider it a candidate for a drain-pour, and I've drainpoured maybe 10 beers out of sheer ick in my lifetime.

I don't say this lightly, and I don't want to get hyperbolic (to be fair, I've only been to fiftyish out of the two hundredish countries currently recognized in the world), but this may well be the absolute worst bourbon barrel aged imperial stout on the global market, full stop.

I imagine the titular "black eagle" is black because said eagle is coated in motor oil spilled into the ocean from a catastrophic tanker disaster that will assuredly later result in the death of said eagle - if the beer's name is intended to correspond to its quality.

F / AVOID