Oggi's Sanctuary

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

[Barrel Aged, Mission Valley] Pourd a hazy golden color with a small, white head, that left nice lacing on the glass. Aroma of apricot, peach, light grapiness, and a light yeastiness as well.Taste of white grapes, kinda dry, citrus fruits, vanilla, a dry yeastiness, and light alcohol in the finish as well.

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

My second beer of the day, at something of a mini-Belgian Beer Fest at O'Brien's yesterday. Really, it was mostly just a reason for Tom Nickel to unload a bunch of leftover beer from the San Diego Belgian Beer Fest from two weeks ago..., but who's complaining? ;)

To be honest, I was little dubious about this one -- it was listed on the "On Tap" beer board as being barrel-aged. "A great -- yet another frickin' beer with too much oak and/or whiskey". But Tom Nickel insisted that this was worthwhile -- not a huge stretch, since I'm sure he had a hand in it's making! -- and nearly as "oak barrel upside-the-head" as I feared. The fact that this particular beer was aged in Chardonay barrels convinced me to give this a go.

The verdict? Does the fact that I went back to this two more times later tell you anything? ;)

Ruddy golden in appearence, with a nice layer of foam on top (not too much, of course), that later produced some intricate lacing along the inside of the glass.

In both appearence and aroma, pretty much your standard Belgian-style Strong Pale Ale. That is to say, nothing negative about this beer, but nothing to help it break out from the pack of other beers of this ilk.

But it's the flavor department that this reall starts to show it's stuff to the world. Immediately pick up on something different -- something interesting -- with this beer. Quite appealing, but hard to pinpoint or describe. Evventually, it took the combined palates of me and two other (more experienced) beer-geeks to figure out that the "pleasant oddness" is most likely the subtle tanins from the Chardonay barrel giving this a left-of-center angle. I think it works quite well for this, and kinda makes you wonder "why hasn't anybody else tried this before?"

A really excellent beer, subtle white grape tanins or not. Would suspect that even without the barrel aging, this would be a very nice beer.

Best Of Show for the mini-Belgian Fest, by far.

(Semi-obligatory plug: Any beer named after one of my favorite metal groups can't be a bad thing! http://www.bnrmetal.com/groups/sanc.htm)
//TB