When Regular > Barrel Aged

Siberian night, I love both but the barrel overpowers a great base beer.

 

Every stout

 

for me its Xocoveza. BA versions were lacking all of the character that made the original great.

 

East End Gratitude Barleywine

 

Arrogant Bastard.

 

Noble Rot from DFH

 

I don't really get the appeal behind a barrel-aged beer that is already good the way it is (without the barrel aging).

 

Mainly echoing most people's sentiment on this topic, but I completely agree in terms of BOMB!. In fact, I'd argue that none of the BOMB! variants are better then the regular BOMB!.

Great minds, drink a like. CHEERS!

 

I'm gonna go ahead and agree with this. Glad I read then whole thread before coming in, guns blazing.
Had both the 2015s on tap, side-by-side, and the BA version was even stickier and gunkier than the regular IST, which I didn't think was possible.

 

JW Lees Harvest Ale
Even More Jesus

 

I'll agree with Regular Bomb being better than BA Bomb. But I believe Pirate Bomb is better than regular Bomb.

 

Couldn't agree more on both Bomb and Pt5, both of which I had over the past week and thought the BAing really just took away the unique characteristics of the beer.

BA Bomb was a syrupy boozy mess, IMO, vs. non-BA.

 

I'm trying to think if there are ANY barrel aged that I prefer over the regular counterpart. But I'm not really a stout guy either, mostly IPA so I guess it makes sense.

Also, can we stop using BA for barrel aged? I keep wanting to say Beer Advocate, because, you know, that's like the site we're on.

 

Disagree on most here, I must confess I love BA beers when it comes to stouts and (particularly) barleywines. IPAs are another kettle of fish and I rarely enjoy them in barrel treatments. But, for me BA Peche Mortel, BASS, BA double negative (but not the maple one), Black Note, Yeti, etc, are all more enjoyable for me in the barrel-aged iterations. Sorry purists!

 

Oak aged St. Bernardus 12 is interesting and perfectly decent, but the original is easily better.

 

Unless you count Bible Belt

 

Narwhal

 

Bigfoot is also better than BA Bigfoot, forgot about that one.

 

Because the barrel aged version might taste really good too? Why have just one good beer when you can have two?

 

Barrel aging appeals to the brewery's bottom line in most cases.