AleSmith Barrel Aged Decadence (2005)

Aroma: 8 | Appearance: 8 | Mouthfeel: 6 | Flavor: 7 | Overall: 8

Bottled (2005 vintage)@Blindtasting at yespr. Ambery red colour, with not that much head. Aroma is alcohol, sweet dark fruits, some toffee, fruits and also spicy notes. Flavour is alcohol, dark dry fruits, fresh fruits as well as some spicyness. Alcohol burns quite a bit.

Aroma: 6 | Appearance: 8 | Mouthfeel: 8 | Flavor: 9 | Overall: 8

Pours with a cloudy amber brown body topped by a thin head with little lacing. It’s sweet and full of toffee and caramel notes with a nice vanilla and bourbon note. Very nice. Full bodied and warming.

Aroma: 8 | Appearance: 8 | Mouthfeel: 8 | Flavor: 9 | Overall: 8

Nice reddish brown. There’s a bit bourbon in there, but it’s nicely balanced. Good vanilla, wood, caramel, and spiciness of the alcohol. This is a really good blend of flavors and aromas.

Aroma: 8 | Appearance: 8 | Mouthfeel: 9 | Flavor: 9 | Overall: 10

Vinage 2005, bottle 230 of 280, shared most generously by Slob. Murky reddish brown color, a perfectly centered-in-the-glass round head of about 1 full inch in diameter, along with a thin ring around the glass edge. Surprisingly some lacing to go along with this. For a style that can offer nothing in appearance, this one was looking fine, some little chunkies to go along with it all (YUM!). The aroma was bourbon, brown sugar, caramel, oak, along with a light fruity accent of faint sticky cherries. The flavor was malty, vanilla, bourbon, brown sugar, oak, along with some sort of a toasty influence at the warmer temperatures. The alcohol was very under control, super smooth at all temperatures, super hard to believe this was a strong beer outside of the hefty maltiness. Mouthfeel was moderate in body, not nearly as full as the maltiness might cause you to anticipate. Weak but ample carbonation. AS has done the best (by far) barrel aging in all such of my tastings, this one a perfect match for the style. While the bourbon is firm and assertive in their BA products, they've still manage to allow the base beer qualities to play a significant role. In fact, in the case of Decadence, this far exceeded the standard non-BA-aged product. A big hats off to AS, and a super duper thanks to Bert for sharing so generously!!!

Aroma: 6 | Appearance: 7 | Mouthfeel: 10 | Flavor: 10 | Overall: 10

Thanks again to Peter Zien and crew for another world class creation! It's rich, silky, with flavors of chocolate, vanilla and brown sugar, along with a few other things I couldn't make out. It finishes very smoothly. It's clear brown in color and poured with no head. I'm trying this side by side with the Decadence that was released in '05. The barrel aged version definitely shows a richness that the the non-barrel aged doesn't have.