Splinter Red
Tröegs Brewing Company

 

 

 

Sampling a cellar temp 750 ml corked and caged bottle poured into a snifter.

The beer pours a clear rich dark mahogany with deep garnet highlights. Minimal fizzy head that is gone immediately to nothing. Aroma is cherries, big booze, and light bourbon hits. No real hop presence anywhere. Quite a nice fruity malt laden nose.
First sip reveals a sticky and slightly syrupy textured body. Very fine gentle and spacious carbonation.
Flavor is sweet malt with cherries, bourbon, and brown sugar mixing together for a fairly robust taste. Again no hops on this sweet beer, I do get a bit of warming booze that keeps this beer a sipper. There is a fair amount of vanilla and brown sugar on the finish. Sweet cherries also linger on my palate.
The beer is actually pretty easy to drink and interesting and complex. I enjoy this beer and wish I had a second bottle. But one for tonight is worth the ride.

 

 

 

Shared by yourefragile. Thanks Michael.

Served side by side with 2008 Mad Elf, also thanks to Michael.

The beer is a relatively hazy reddish amber hue with a small, fleeting head. The aroma offers candy, sugar, cherries, Belgian yeast, booze. Flavor continues this path with additional notes of vanilla. Pretty good. A bit sweet and still boozy. A bit of age seems to have served this well, though I never sampled this fresh. Light to medium feel. This is definitely best shared with a group, as more than a small serving would be overkill. perhaps a touch of cocunt in the finish with subtle, lingering oak. Not my favorite, but certainly a special treat.

Poured from the bottle into a tasting snifter.

Appearance: Pours a slightly cloudy reddish amber color with hardly any head.

Smell: Sweet with an apple juice like aroma. I'm getting a belgian candy note along with some cherries.

Taste: This was a very smooth beer at this point. I don't feel like I'm getting a ton from the barrel. Some banana and cherry notes. Tastes like it has some age to it.

Mouthfeel: The body is a bit syrupy with very little carbonation and a dry finish.

Overall: I wouldn't say this was fantastic, but I'm really glad I got to try it. I like Mad Elf, so this one was a treat.

One of my most excited to try beers- aged for about 10 months after a trade and consumed a few days ago.

A- Body is a quite hazy reddish brown hue. Pours with a small <1/2 finger head. Head fades quickly- but cloudiness is consistent throughout the body. Little to no lacing is left behindin the glass.

S- Pretty well balanced-the Mad Elf is there but represents < or = 50% of nose. The rest is bourbon barrell with a good balance between the bourbon astriingency and sweetness as well as the woddiness.

T- The flavor is very similqr to the nose. Its a really good balance between hte bourbon barrel and the base beer. The finish had a lot more bouron and oak and a lot less spice and cherry than the regular mad elf- though the overal alcohol burn is comparable.

M- Low to medium carbonation and a medium weight body with some alcohol astringincy and bourbon stickiness as components.

O- Overall this is another great, well done beer by Troegs. Its really a lot more mellow than regular mad elf-which is a clearly a likable or unlikeable beer- because I love the spicy yeast, cherry and honey, and this particular brew is much more mellow but just as boozy I think I prefer the regular Mad Elf. This is still a fantastic, special well done beer that my boyfriend thinks far exceeds regular mad elf. Personal tastes and personal tastes and Troegs is still my favorite brewery.