Darkthorn
Haywire Brewing

Poured into a Fremont small snifter. Pours a medium to dark reddish orange with a fine, one finger light khaki head with great retention and solid lacing. Aroma of lightly biscuity, but bready malt, over-ripe light stone fruit and plums, woody oak and oaky vanilla. Flavor is candi malt, faint biscuit, ripe plums and apricots, woody oak and vanilla. Medium bodied with light to medium creaminess. After I got this, I thought I'd never seen a barreled doppelbock before, but saw that I had reviewed and enjoyed one from Buoy. And reading the review, I was surprised to see that one of my initial reactions was that the profile was reminiscent of some barreled Belgian strong pales I've had in the past, exactly as I responded to the earlier one. The German bock malt character is vaguely present, but there is so much fruit evident that one wouldn't guess that this was the base malt. That being said, the flavor is quite nice. A lot of vanilla/oak character is present. Not quite as integrated as the Buoy or Belgian were, but very nicely done and fun to drink. Picking up two barreled ales from a small, unknown-to-me brewery seemed risky, but both this and the stout were quite well done, and both had been brewed a while ago, so have held up nicely. Haywire is way out of my usual stomping grounds, but I'd like to try their next barreled offering. Overall a pleasant surprise.