25,000 Twinkle Lights - BBA (2021)
Eighty-Three Brewery

22 ounce bottle into untappd Christmas bowl glass, 2021 vintage. Pours crystal clear dark ruby red color with a small fairly dense off white head with good retention, that reduces to a thin spotty lace cap that lingers. Ligth spotty soapy lacing and some streaming carbonation on the glass. Aromas and flavors of big raisin, fig, red apple, ginger, orange peel, cinnamon, caramel, brown sugar, toast, oak, herbal, grass, peppercorn, bourbon, light cocoa/vanilla, and yeast earthiness. Bit of coconut as it warms. Light cinnamon/ginger bitter bitterness and oak tannin spiciness on the finish. Medium carbonation and medium-plus body. Balanced bready/lightly slick/silky malts, sticky spice/hops, and oak tannins in the mouthfeel. Lightly increasing lingering spicy/tannin dryness, no cloying/astringent flavors. Vanilla and charred oak flavors lasting after the finish. Fairly warming and mildly boozy 10.45% after the finish. I expected it to be sweeter going in, but it is more like a dryer spiced English barleywine, which is certainly not a bad thing to me. Nice amount of barrel presence, without being a booze bomb. Great all around balance, not overwhelming on any aspect.