Commentist Beer Barrel: Barrels and Barrels of Barrels

Beer, as most of you know, is really good. Another thing that many of you also know is that liquor is also good. But as with many pairs of things that are good individually (ice cream and hot sauce! sex and skiing!), combining the two can be dicey. Maybe you pour half a shot of bourbon into a glass of imperial stout, just to see what it’ll taste like, and ruin both the bourbon and the stout. Maybe you’re drinking beer and vodka all night in no particular sequence, destroying any sense of pacing you might otherwise have had, and you puke in the sink. In any case, this is treacherous territory, but since at least 1992, when Goose Island Brewing Company produced its first batch of Bourbon County Stout, American breweries have been cleverly navigating it by aging some of their stronger beers in liquor barrels, allowing their brews to absorb the distinctive flavors of various spirits and their oaken vessels while leaving the overbearing burn of distilled alcohol—which has its place, for sure, but is almost always utterly unwelcome in beer—aside. Whiskey, especially bourbon, is traditional, but lately you’ll see brewers using casks that once held wine, rum, tequila, brandy, even gin.

I observed in the comments of one of these things a while ago that between barrel-aged beer, the newer innovation of barrel-aged premixed cocktails, and and the even newer thing Jameson is doing where they age some of their whiskey in barrels that, after having held Jameson whiskey the first time around, were afterward used to age Irish stout… good God, I need to take a breather already. Anyway, I figure with all of this going on, it’s only a matter of time before we see the first beer aged in barrels that previously aged an old fashioned, that old-fashioned having been made with whiskey aged in beer barrels, that beer itself a barrel-aged barleywine, and on and on like a snake eating its own tail, but the snake is made out of barrels. But while we’re waiting on the barrel apocalypse, we could do a lot worse than to check out the latest offering from one of the finest makers of barrel-aged beer in the country: Founders Brewing Company, of Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Founders Project PAM is, first of all, a black IPA. “But!” you interject, “The P in IPA stands for pale! It can’t be black and pale at the same time!” And you’re right. It can’t. It’s black, or at least so dark brown it might as well be black. I don’t care, though, because contrary to the common perception of black IPA as a relatively new invention for brewers who are out of real ideas, marketing materials have described beers like this as “black pale” going back hundreds of years. Also, I’m not calling it a “Cascadian dark ale”. Get real.

Project PAM opens with a tremendous amount of bitterness, a devastating one-two punch of hops and roast malt with an overall effect that’s a bit tobacco-like. This is familiar ground when it comes to black IPAs, but there’s a twist: This particular black IPA was aged in Founders Brewing’s famous maple syrup bourbon barrels. Yes, famous. I think. If they are famous, it’s for their use in aging the legendary Canadian Breakfast Stout, BeerAdvocate.com’s seventh best beer in the whole wide world, and in my own opinion, the very best beer I’ve ever had. CBS is a complete bourbon and maple bomb in a way that this definitely isn’t. Those flavors complement and balance the bitterness up front, and as the hops quickly fade away, they’re replaced with a smooth, nuanced, and surprisingly light sweetness.

I don’t really have anything in my previous beer-drinking experience to compare this to. The base beer reminds me a lot of Firestone Walker’s Wookie Jack. The barrel flavor is like Canadian Breakfast, sorta, but toned way down. The beer as a whole, though, like a lot of these Founders experiments, is unique.

lady snow says: It’s bitter, but it’s not some, like, fuckin’ quadruple IPA. The maple really helps balance it. When people don’t like IPAs the reason is always the bitterness, but I think this manages to be a beer for both people who don’t like IPAs and for people who do. This is really good.

Grade: If you’re the adventurous sort, this is the one new beer you ought to try this year, budget and distribution allowing. That’s not to say it’s my favorite new beer; it isn’t. But it’s delicious, and it’s fresh, and it’s fun, and if you can’t get excited for a beer that’s unlike anything you’ve ever tasted, what can you get excited for?

tl;dr: You wouldn’t buttchug your breakfast. It’s too damn early in the day. Right?

make it snow is an alot of beer who already misses college football. He split a 750ml bottle of Project PAM with lady snow a week ago, but didn’t post the review because it needed some more time in the barrel. At press time he was drinking a Shiner Wicked Hop IPA. It wasn’t bad.

Photo credit: Kentucky BBQ Festival

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makeitsnowondem
make it snow is an alot of beer. He is also a Broncos fan living in Denver.
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Moose -The End Is Well Nigh
blaxabbath

Reviews like this are going to pave the way for Bud Light Heavy Ultra, for when you’re #upordownforwhateverormaybenotfeelimgittonight

Don T

Breakfast brew is something we can all get behind. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=IOgo_clq8dM

laserguru

I would expect nothing less, Stagger Lee.

Moose -The End Is Well Nigh

For something completely different; a cider (not Dickens Cider!).

The first reviewer is trippin’:
http://www.ratebeer.com/beer/colorado-cider-cherry-glider-cider/267757/

Very light and subtle compared to the commercial ciders, not sugary sweet either, very light.

Moose -The End Is Well Nigh

Very light, background cherry taste, dry, not as tart as expected.

http://www.coloradocider.com/our-cider

If you don’t want beer and don’t like the sick sweet ciders this might be good for you.

Moose -The End Is Well Nigh

Sorry I brought it up.

I keeeed, I keeed.

I did the coffee IPA on another post; wasn’t impressed.

ballsofsteelandfury

Now all I want to do is find and buy Canadian Breakfast Stout!