Crazy Artie's Stampede Porter
Cape Cod Beer

 

Our porter bourbon barrel aged for 6 months. Found EXCLUSIVELY at Luke's of Cape Cod. Guess I got lucky to find this. Picked up last weekend at... wait for it... Luke's in West Yarmouth.

Pours a tan colored creamy almost fluffy but fizzy 1 finger head that fades at a med pace, nice lacing, and just about pitch black beer.

Nose is loaded with bourbon, tons of barrel juice, nice vanilla barrel notes, fresh bourbon, little candied caramel with mild roasted porter notes, a hint of cocoa, hint of a cookie wafer, turning to a little dark chocolate cocoa and fluffy nougat notes, with nice vanilla barrel rounding.

Taste brings sweet bourbon again, but a mix of big malty flavors as well some cocoa again, mild dark powdered cocoa and biscuity cookie wafer again. Then a creamy mild chocolate note, not really roasty this time, but a dark powdery black malt dry character with mild roasty like dark malt qualities. A little vanilla barrel with mild bourbon barrel juice, not overpowering but definitely there. The base beer seems a little light though as the barrel is more just a different tasty character in it than accentuating the beer, which is also lacking any good bitterness or hop profile, plus it's almost flat. Finish is dry-ish, a little sweet, a little sticky, mild cocoa and milk chocolate lingering, a hint of bourbon, and almost a lactose like creamy thing lingering.

Mouth is med to fuller bod, fairly creamy, but little carbonation unfortunately.

With the finish on the beer, and the lack of carbonation, I'd say it didn't bottle carbonate or attenuate in the bottle well enough. A little more attenuation in the bottle would have added that extra nice finish and nice carbonation, and this beer would have been awesome I think. the base porter is nice but seems like it's missing something as well, and the bourbon barrel was great but didn't play off the porter as well as I thought it would. Still, a good beer and quite enjoyable.