Vanilla Waves
Barclay Brewing Co.

 

 

 

Yeah, it's only late October but it's never the wrong time of year for a "motor oil" Stout (if you're into that sort of thing) and of course, I am. When I saw this at ShopRite Liquors in Little Falls, I could barely read the writing on the side of the can but the name and label were enough to draw me in, aside from the face that I never had anything from Barclay before.

Once I got online and looked them up, I realized that this was their only offering on this site and indeed, this was a doozy from start to finish. Silky, viscous, and only topped off with the thinnest of bubbly mocha heads, this was a beer that had a quiet luxuriousness from the get-go. Slick vanilla, rich baker's chocolate, and high-end cake batter dominated the nose as the taste richly followed suit Wondrously slick and seemingly lacking in friction, the liquid effortlessly flowed out of my pint glass it felt like a fermented dessert at a Three-Star Michelin rated restaurant. Some subtle praline and pecan, dark cherry, fig, raisin, and lightly burnt coconut enhanced the enduring vanilla and seemingly imported chocolate that melded together wonderfully here, as the carbonation was light and body up to part with the heft of this American Imperial Stout.

Imperial, this was as this was a beast in every nearly every sense of the word. This even coated my pint glass in a thin layer of vanilla when I swirled it around as it was quite thick and left a sticky coating on my lips like any finely-baked chocolate cake would. Dated 7/27 on the bottom of the can, this lacked sediment and skunking as the alcohol helped it to age nicely over the last three months. Quite a first impression from Barclay as this had me looking forward to cold winter's nights ahead and the beers that help get me through them every year. If this was all I had to hibernate with, so be it. It's a hell of a brew that will have me looking out for them from here on out!

Vanilla Waves pours amazingly viscous, enough to prevent the head from surfacing, only forming a fine mocha chain over the matte black body.

Taste is shockingly tangy relative to the lusciously thick intro. As advertised, vanilla isn't the decadent creaminess the "pastry bois" might be ISO (an odd note for a brewery to make in their marketing), but there's certainly more here than would have been present in any of the old school vanilla stouts. It's a little more floral and bright, but nothing sharp or acrid as I've sometimes detected in these bean varieties.

The roast takes a while to surface, but comes up toasty with accents of cigar skin, smoke and cocoa dusted date. Still, it's fairly sweet while also intensely tangy of tobacco leaf. There's something I can't quite put my finger on--the tang has an almost an herbal, woody bitterness, just faintly on the back end that's quite hard to identify, but maybe like a sort of pine oil and espresso. Actually, charcoal is a good descriptor, which they also noted in their marketing.

All that having been said, this intensely viscous beer is really hard to finish. Its initial sweetness is intense, and that unique tang that's hard to identify is just sort of puckering, not to be confused with sour. I wanted to like it, but I can't fully recommend it.

 

Canned on 7/27/21; consumed on 9/7/21

Pours a viscous, tarry-black body topped with a slow-forming half-finger of silky, dark mocha foam, fading quickly to a glossy, capless surface, a thin ring of firm, velvety collar, and a minimal spread of firm, webby lacing holding tentatively to the walls of the glass.

Aromas open with soft vanilla cream into melted dark chocolate upfront, with toasted toffee accents guiding into chocolate pudding undertones; charry vanilla pod explores a dense wave of bittersweetness over time as fleeting dark fruit esters bring the bouquet to a peak.

Taste highlights the richness of German chocolate cake batter emerging from a robust, evocatively malty profile, expanding with notes of burnt cake and black bread crusts leveled by the bittersweetness of fresh vanilla pod; 100% dark cacao melds with roasty coffee for a tiramisu-esque lingering on the back end, while dark berries sensations ease through the finish.

Mouthfeel matches appearance; a viscous, silkily textured body proceeds with virtually no perceptible carbonation on the tongue, instead opting for a creamy fluff over the mid-palate before embracing a building char into the back end; a quiet warmth builds as the consistently attenuated weight maintains through the close.

Subtle vanilla so leisurely flows throughout this bulky and nuanced malt bomb; condensed flavor as a result hyperfocuses a throwback malt profile laden with bittersweetness on its more decadent potential.