Blue Monk Bourbon Barley Wine
Brewsters Brewing Company & Restaurant - Eleventh Avenue

355 ml bottle bought at one of the restaurants. 6.99$, which, I suppose, is about average these days for an 11.8% barley wine, maybe slightly expensive? I know Olde Deuteronomy from Alley Kat I can get for about 1 dollar less, but it's been a while since I've had Blue Monk, and I've certainly never tried this, their barrel aged version.

Cracked open at slightly below room temperature, poured into a tulip glass. A tiny little puff of carbonation later, and I'm pouring a pretty slick looking amber/mahogany beer with a small but fine quite-white head. Head dissipates almost immediately, but leaves a ring and some thick strings of lacing. About what I expected.

Ahh yeah, huge toffee/caramel notes waft from the glass and I haven't even picked it up. Tons of honey, raisins, caramel and only a slight tinge of that 11.8%. After a couple swirls you definitely get some of the dusty bourbon/vanilla/oak aroma coming out as well. Yeah, in my opinion, though it's been a while, the bourbon aging really brought this to another level. It's still very sweet smelling, of course, but the dry wood profile has toned that down a bit, and added more complexity than the regular Blue Monk. Very good.

Taste delivers on the nose, with huge biscuity caramel malting and plenty of honey, vanilla, toffee, sweet raisins and dates, prunes, and just a hint of booziness, coming through more in the feel rather than the taste. Finishes quite dry, with the website listing it at 60 IBUs. Everything works in proportion here: the sweetness is strong but never overpowering, and the lingering dry finish makes up for any cloying sensation. Full bodied, smooth and viscous. Yeah, well balanced and dangerously drinkable with that nearly 12 percent ABV. The more I sip the more I am impressed by its balance, never becoming sickly sweet and delivering a decent hit of hopping to round it all out.

This is most definitely a step up from the already-quite-decent Blue Monk barleywine, and this can sneak up on you real quick--put a nipple on this beer.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

650ml bomber poured into tulip 21/10/15

A crystal clear amber liquid with a small amount of super slow bubbles, a dense finger finger of foam sits for a couple sips leaving a few random patches, wide legs try to form

S heaps of barrel, sweet whiskey, vanilla, caramel and toffee, dry corn flakes, more wet barrel, not sure where the nearly 12 points of booze are hiding

T has a spicy edge and a little booze pops up but again its far from where it should be, rye like spice as it warms up, still lots of barrel and a little over ripe orchard fruit

M soft and leaning towards full, numbs the lips ever so slightly, oily and I'm struggling to believe this checks in at 11.8%, spicy, woody finish

O very sneaky booze and lots of sweet woody whiskey, not sure if this improves on the base but it has plenty of barrel as advertised

13$ at the source for a 650ml? I suppose the days of 20$ 6ers of .5L Blue Monks are a thing of the past, Its a solid beer but not the price point I was hoping for from one of my favorite and underrated locals

 

650ml bottle, nice to see Brewsters packaging more of their one-offs and seasonals! From the label - 'Aged in Kentucky Bourbon Barrels..' - as opposed to all that Bourbon from those other states?

This beer pours a clear, bright medium bronzed amber colour, with two chubby fingers of puffy, loosely foamy, and bubbly ecru head, which leaves a few instances of pothole blob lace around the glass as things slowly sink away.

It smells of semi-sweet, gritty caramel malt, biscuity toffee, muddled dark orchard fruit, a mild earthy spiciness, a further nougaty chocolate bar thing, zippy Bourbon barrel notes - soused wood and vanilla, mostly - and a robust, but still standoffish booziness. The taste is more Bourbon-like up front, with the acrid corn and rye graininess, wet wood, and adult vanilla sweetness, up alongside a sturdy native caramel/toffee/treacle maltiness, more weird, but soon to be welcome savoury spice, very subtle grassy, leafy, and fruity hops, and the same reserved, but now bristling alcohol measure from the aroma.

The carbonation is good and ready to challenge my skeptical palate with its free-wheeling frothiness, the body a decent middleweight for something treated with Kentucky wood, and more smooth than I might have initially given it credit for being. It finishes sweet, yeah, but now moderated by wood, booze, spice, and to a much lesser degree, hop.

One of those weird collisions of cosmic disorder, where the two constituent parts come off changed, if not for the better themselves, then in the new union that they've created. Um, yeah. Anyways, the Bourbon wood helps keep the base barleywine's sweeter notes duly in check, and Blue Monk's overall sassiness retains a drinkability (even at further heightened ABV levels) that yer average Kentucky whiskey swill can only aspire to.