I’m about to really loathe myself here in a minute. I can feel it. I know it’s coming. Honestly, I sort of judged myself a little bit when I bought this earlier today. Here I am, the grizzled curmudgeon traditionalist who swears that the best beers are the ones least tampered with. Classic styles, forged in Europe over a hundred-plus years, or created here in the US during the early years of the Craft Beer Boom. You can keep your triple barrel-aged, brownie-batter, s’mores stouts, thank you very much. I’ll have a Baltic Porter please. What do you mean it’s brewed with an ale yeast?! You, why I oughta…
But I digress. Long story short, with a few significant exceptions, ‘dessert’ beers aren’t my thing. But this. From its tawny ruby depths, up through the pale beige cap rise aromas that absolute refuse to be ignored. Sweet, sticky, bourbon barrel-aged maple syrup (like WCP’s greatly-missed “Sweet Sophie”), hints of cinnamon sugar-blasted cereal, and something like butterscotch. And something…eggy. There’s no doubt about it; it’s French toast, with powdered sugar and some barrel-aged maple syrup. It’s almost too much. Almost. And against my better judgment, I can’t say no.
On the palate, this is chock full of maple syrup, toast, vanilla, and subtle cinnamon. A bit of toffee as well. It’s definitely, definitely sweet, but it’s kept just this side of cloying by the substantial alcohol. Not only has the barrel-aging thinned out the body a bit (no surprise there) the heat provides a light bitterness on the finish that keeps this from going too far.
So there it is. It’s really tasty. It’s everything you’d expect it to be. It’s almost too much. But it’s not, quite. For me personally, this is a guilty pleasure I’d love to hate, but…I actually think I’ll have another snifter, please.
$14.99/4pk bottles (we received 5 cases)
Cheers,
Dan
Rock Bridge Wine and Spirits 