Barrel Aged Howizter Ale
Brewsters Brewing Company & Restaurant - Eleventh Avenue

16oz pint at Beer Revolution YEG Oliver Square. A 5-percent barrel-aged brew? OK, Brewsters.

This beer appears a hazy, dark dishwater brown colour, with one skinny finger of weakly foamy and wispy tan head, which leaves a few instances of cannonball splash aftermath lace around the glass as things slowly abate.

It smells of semi-sweet, bready and doughy caramel malt, muddled black orchard fruit (plums and prunes, mostly), a bit of whisky-forward vanilla and wet woody character, medium cocoa powder, and some very tame earthy, leafy, and floral green hop bitters. The taste is big bready and pastry-like caramel malt, biscuity toffee, a hint of day-old cafe-au-lait, a lessened plum and black cherry fruitiness, more strangely heat-free sweet whisk(e)y essences (vanilla, grain, and spiced woodsiness), ethereal bitter chocolate, and more understated leafy, musty, and floral hoppiness.

The carbonation is fairly low-key in its plain as the day is long frothiness, the body a decent middleweight, and generally smooth, the slick brown spirit ghost actually aiding in the cause. It finishes well off-dry, the caramel, cocoa, and 'barrel' notes gently playing us out.

Overall, this in an interesting conceit when it comes to this sort of treatment - take a worthy base brew (winter ale, sure, why not), and barrel age it heavily, apparently. However, keep the ABV at a standard 5 points, lower than even said underlying beer - not all that certain how they pulled that one off, but it's tasty all the same, if a bit too sweet by the end.

Edit: turns out that Beer Rev had the wrong info from their sister operation - the ABV is actually 7.5%, so disregard about half of what I wrote above.