Thank God it’s Friday. It’s been a full day at work, and then my son’s baseball team had practice tonight. I’m an assistant coach, so I had to help. When I got home, I had to dig up a huge crown of Cascade hops. Since we’re moving soon, I wanted to bring them over to the new house and plant them. After all that work, I decided it was time for a very good beer – especially since I haven’t had many beers lately. I’m not quite certain when or where I got this beer, but there are two of them in the fridge.
Location: Poured into a snifter glass at my home in Bloomington, IL.
Numbers: 10.2% ABV, 50 IBUs, ~300 Calories
Appearance & Aroma: It’s a deep brown, mahogany color with brown highlights when held up to the light. There’s almost no head on it, just a creamy ring of bubbles around the edge of the glass. The aroma is an awesome, mellow bourbon barrel smell.
Taste & Feel: The body is full and the mouthfeel is smooth. The flavor up front is somewhat sweet with some caramel maltiness and a touch of booziness. In the middle, the maltiness grows, along with a good amount of bourbon barrel flavor, which has a little bit of barrel char roastiness. The finish is fairly dry with a mix of maltiness, mellow bourbon and barrel roastiness with some raisin-like flavors slightly behind them. The aftertaste is caramel maltiness and bourbon barrel flavors with some alcohol warming sensations.
Food Pairing: This beer would be an incredible pairing with a steak or BBQ without a doubt. The caramel maltiness and barrel-char flavors would complement the flavors from the grill perfectly.
Overall Impression: I’m not sure how long this one was aged in my beer fridge, but it was a great beer. For someone who enjoys bourbon barrel beers, this one was smooth and it had wonderful caramel maltiness flavors. The bourbon and barrel flavors were mellow and blended very nicely with the malts. In addition, it had a body and smoothness that allowed these flavors to shine. Overall, this was a very good beer, and if I can get my hands on some more, I’ll definitely get it again.
My Rating: 
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