Captain Lawrence Golden Delicious

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

Aroma is strong and mainly sour apple. It pours a hazy honey golden with a thick, fine-bubbled white head. Malty, fruity flavor has a firm but not nasty alcohol nip. Lively, fizzy texture leaves behind a firm, persistent tingle.

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

Smells quite characteristically of apples as I am pouring this brew. It is well carbonated, even foaming a bit as soon as I pop the cap. The head is quite frothy, fairly large bubbled, initially three-fingers thick, but disappears fairly quickly and is a pale, off-white color. The beer is a deep copper color and shows a brilliantly clear, rich gold / polished copper color when held up to the light. A deeper inspection of the aroma yields a mix of flower-like cider and buttery oak aromatics. The buttery oak notes are quite noticeable and almost seem a bit like diacetyl. The aroma has a fleeting spiciness to it at times that seems to be a mix of apple nose, oak and fermentation character and makes me think of a rich, buttery, cinnamon apple desert. The aroma is not nearly as complex as I was expecting though; the Tripel character seems to have been lost somewhere along the way.

Lightly sweet up front, which accents some soft apple flavors. The body is quite thin for a beer of this strength, though some tannins seem to give this a touch of texture towards the finish. Light hop flavors are also noticeable up front (an herbal citrus mix) before the oak character kicks in and provides a mix of spicy oak note, buttery-oak notes and a bit of warming alcohol. The barrel character is not as overwhelming as one might expect, especially since it does seem to be the most notable part of this beer. The beer does start out quite smooth with flavors of the Tripel and apples, but then becomes sharper and more biting as the brandy and oak flavors kick in through to the finish. Toasty oak notes mix in with the apple and Tripel flavors up front, especially as the beer warms a bit.

Allowing this to warm up from the initial 50°F / 10°C temperature helps to soften the barrel character just a bit; though really it seems to bring out a bit more complexity up front, but the hot alcohol and sharp barrel notes still seem to overwhelm the finish. Up front I like the mix of clean apple flavors, soft citrus and lightly sweet grain character.

The finish is a bit too spicy and hot for this beer to be truly great, in fact it really can detract from the experience of this beer. Some age might help some, but it will be a race between oxidation and long lingering oak notes; if the barrel character can mellow before the base Tripel over oxidizes then this might end up really tasty, but it will take at least a year if not multiple years before this is evident. I really like the idea of this brew and hope that later releases of this brew show a better balance between Tripel and barrel character.

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

First, a big thank you to beastiefan2k for being kind enough to send this in our recent trade. This is one fantastic beer, only to get better I think. The wood and apple flavor really meld nicely in this beer, with the alcohol making itself quite noticeable. The beer pours out a cloudy burnt orange color/dark amber color with a one-finger thick head. Aroma is apples and wood. After it warms up it takes on this white wine like character (perhaps from the wood), waffle cone, spicy and yeasty. Flavor is full on apple brandy and wood with some subtle malty sweetness coming in meekly. The beer is able to maintain a nice fruity character, along with a semblance of the base tripel and nicely melds with the wood and brandy character. Excellent idea and it's done phenomenally well. After a year or two, after it mellows out a bit I can see this being an exquisite beer.