Barrel House Belgian Winter Ale

Aroma: 8 | Appearance: 7 | Mouthfeel: 9 | Flavor: 7 | Overall: 6

This is well carbonated as a reasonably soft pour easily produces almost a four-finger thick, amber tinged, tan colored head in my 25cl tulip glass. The beer is an opaque, concentrated red-amber color as it sits on the table, but shows a clear, cranberry-red color when held up to the light. The aroma is sweet and fruity up front with a kick of toasty malt towards the finish. Aromatic notes evocative of caramelized fruit (prunes, raisins and even a touch of tart tamarind), toffee, a touch of rum-like character (light molasses perhaps) are found up front but seem to not have much staying power. When digging around for a bit some dry, malt driven character is noticeable with touches of toasted crackers, biscuit malt, and a crushed grain character are noticeable. The aroma is fairly appetizing, but somehow does note have a lot of presence after the initial surge of sweet grain / fermentation aromatics.

Lightly sweet and definitely a bit tart in the finish; it is not so tart that this is necessarily attributable to an infection, instead it is quite light and certainly pleasant. Fairly light bodied & along with the light body is a bit nicer than suggested by the somewhat sweet aromatic intimations. A toasty malt backbone gets a hint of roastiness to it at times, but mostly reminds me of lightly toasted whole grain bread, and whole grain crackers. Since the sweetness is soft here the fruit flavors are not quite as prominent as suggested in the aroma; this causes the tamarind notes to play a slightly bigger role, but the raisin notes are still pretty noticeable. A nice prickly carbonation couples quite well with the soft mouthfeel & residual body to make this a chewy, yet easy drinking beer; the mix is just about perfect for a Belgian-Dubbel inspired beer.

A pretty good beer, the flavor and aroma are nice, but the texture is just about perfect for a beer of this inclination. I do like the dimension that the light tartness adds to this brew, it adds a much needed complexity as I think this beer would be much to shallow without it.

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

From a bottle. Pours a hazy purple/brown with a quickly disappearing off white head. Aroma is sweet and fruity. Flavor is slightly sour, but other Barrel House beers have had this so again, I think a bad batch of yeast. Grape juice quality to it. An ok beer, I think it'd be a lot better w/o the sour flavor.

Aroma: 8 | Appearance: 7 | Mouthfeel: 8 | Flavor: 4 | Overall: 6

Bottle. Pours a clear purplish-brown color with a medium off-white head. Sweet caramel and malt aroma, similar to a brown ale. Mouthfeel is nice and smooth. Flavor is sour. Almost like a Flemish sour, which is odd. Hints of strawberry, caramel, and a malty finish. I'm not sure this bottle tasted how it should. If so, then it's not a very good beer.