REVIEW: Kentucky Bourbon Barrel Stout

I'm sure many of you are familiar with Kentucky Bourbon Barrel Ale. It's all over the place around here and in Kentucky. It's a good beer, I enjoy it whenever I have it, which is not very often. But I don't really love it. I think my biggest problem with it is that those bourbony notes of vanilla, caramel, and oak seem out of place in such a light beer. When a beer goes into a bourbon barrel I think it works better with a big hearty beer. So when they announced that they were going to barrel age a stout I was pretty excited. Also, one more note on this beer. This was actually a Christmas present! Thanks, Meredith! After almost a month I'm finally getting to it. To the beer!

Bourbon Barrel Stout pours a deep, dark opaque black. It's topped by a thin layer of tan colored head that recedes pretty quickly. It certainly looks the part of a stout.

Once we get to the aromas things start to seem a little off. I'm getting plenty of big, roasty coffee notes which makes sense as the beer was brewed and aged with coffee. What I'm not getting though, is any bourbon aromas. In the Bourbon Barrel Ale the big vanilla oaky notes are all over the place. None of that here though. There is an interesting vegetal peppery note, and a bit of a nice smokiness. Now none of this is bad, I like the aromas here. Just a bit odd that the pepper character seems to completely overshadows any of that bourbony goodness.

The flavors are more of the same. It's medium to light bodied. Much lighter than I expect from an 8% stout. Again, there's that vegetal, pepper note but alongside that are some lovely dark chocolate and coffee flavors. There's a great sweetness to the beer here that I'm quite enjoying. Back to that pepper flavor. It's similar to the flavor in the Country Boy Jalapeño Smoked Porter and the Left Hand Fade to Black vol 3. But those two had a prickly heat to them that isn't evident here. It finishes with a nice tangy smokiness. Again, conspicuously absent again is any evidence of the barrel aging.

I liked this beer a lot. I enjoyed drinking it. But it's not much of a bourbon beer. If you're looking to try an interesting beer, check this one out. If you're looking for a great bourbon barrel aged beer though, I'd suggest other brews.

HD