Whenever I'm looking down the aisles of one of the local beer stores, I really only have a vague recollection of just how good a particular brewery is most of the time. I mean, there are some standouts like Stone and Bearded Iris, but it's very easy to lose a brewery in the morass of craft beer makers that can't be consistent. Saugatuck is not really one of those breweries. It has a good, unique name, and their beers definitely skew toward great. So, I didn't have much reluctance to snatch up a barrel aged beer from these guys. Hell yes, I will try it out.
First sip is strong, heavy, sweet, and quite good. The sweetness is hard to put my finger on exactly. I would say it's similar to toasted marshmallow fluff. It merges into the wood almost seamlessly with a toffee and caramel malt that make this taste almost like it should be a dessert beer. I mean, with a 13% ABV, this should probably end most nights; this isn't a really a beer for starting the evening. It's a very good sipping beer, though. And I could see sipping this beer very slowly in front of a warm fire on a cold night. But I'm not going to continue the sip, am I?
Tip-in is sweet toffee and caramel with hints of vanilla and oak. The center is a syrupy mix of heaviness with alcohol dragging everything down while the oak brings a dryness and the sweetness continues to flow across the top. The finish is a sudden dryness that overtakes everything before sweetness reemerges and a cloud of marshmallow, vanilla, and vague dark chocolate are left for the trail off.
Bottom Line: Complex, and pretty darn good.
3.75/5
