I try to be as fastidious about the reviews I generate as I can. One of the things that I don't think anyone else gives a crap about our the labels I assigned to each review. This time, before I've even tried this beer, I think I'm pretty safe in saying that this should be a winter warmer style, so I'm going to add that tag. However, this says that it was aged in oak from barrel chips. Technically, this means that it is not barrel aged. I'm going to go ahead and put the label on here, and I don't think anyone but me is going to have a hard time justifying it.
First sip is smooth and nice, but it has some dryness and coffee intertwined with bitterness after the smooth beer is done, and I could probably do without any of that. I think the beer was very good while it was in my mouth, but the aftereffect of the beer detracts from the enjoyment. Now, it is entirely possible this beer is suffering from the very common problem of a sip just not being enough to discern the complexities and beauty of a particular beverage. This is why we swig.
Tip-in is fairly significant carbonation burn with vanilla and oak being just about the only things underneath it that I can taste. The middle has a relatively solid malt of caramel and nuts from a brown ale that is beset with vanilla, but everything else just goes watery; are there even hops in this ale? The finish is not nearly as aggressive as it was in the sip, and the dryness seems to slowly encroach on the beer as rolling waves of coffee and bitter dark chocolate join in for the trail off.
Bottom Line: It's doing a lot, but it's not getting a whole lot done.
2.0/5
