AleSmith Barrel Aged Speedway Stout

Brewed by AleSmith Brewing Company
Style: Imperial Stout
San Diego, California USA

Tasting session at jbrus. Bottled. Opaque black, thick brown head. Aroma of chocolate, coffee, cherries, vanilla. Strong and lasting complex flavour, chocolate, coffee, lactic notes. So complex and yet so balanced. Way better than regular version, although i haven’t compared them side by side. An extraordinary brew, very, very good.

I definitely drank this one too young. I am sure it does better with age. I thick strong bourbon bomb. Dark chocolate and bitter heavy dark roasted coffee and more bourbon. Almost like beer flavored bourbon. Really too bad because I wanted to love it. (Will Re-Rate with an older vintage, don’t hate the numbers.)

Bottle thanks to fordest. Pours a deep, dark Brown/Black with tan head. Aroma of dark roast, bakers chocolate, some alcohol. Flavor of nice ark roast, sweet, some dark roast, very faint wood, faint bourbon. Mouth feel is heavy body with low carbonation. Overall, very good stuff!!!!

750ml bottle. #40/233. Dark chocolate truffle, just a bit of coffee, not a lot of barrel on the nose. Plenty of dark, roasty, chewy and thick malt. Dark, dried fruit skin (raisin and prune). Barrel and malt are fairly in balance. Some pepper. Pours the requisite oily black with a think, dark khaki head. Nice... but standard pour for a BA Impy. Flavor is initially loaded with the dark chocolate that I found to be quite nice on the nose. Vanilla, dark fruits, coffee... Plenty of barrel presence. Some toasted nuttiness. Better than your average BA Impy... but the alcohol is rather distracting on the tongue throughout. Silky on the tongue with a shorter, boozy finish. I like the intense chocolate flavors initially on the tongue, but the barrel, coffee and alcohol tend to distract later. Nevertheless... an admirable effort. Thanks Jonathan!

Rustic, reddish black. Honeycrisp apples, raspberries, and bitter chocolate aroma. Dark chocolate caramels. Cherry-cognac chocolates. Really sweet. Firmly alcoholic.

A thick, prickly, spirited flavor. Lots of bitterness and peppery alcohol, skimming the deep chocolate and creamy sweet flavors with rough strokes. Sharply warm and borderline hot for me, in amaretto and even kahlua flavors. The combination of the acrid, oxygenated coffee flavors with the spirit flavors is pretty unpleasant to me, but thankfully it sits deeply enough underneath the ocean of chocolate and molasses and extraneous sweetness that it doesn’t ruin the beer.

Palate is full and oily; certainly hot in the finish, with a peppery singe. And a little bit of chocolate covered coffee beans lingers long after the finish. There’s a lot of positive qualities here but I can’t appreciate the expired coffee flavors or the heavy heat.

Bottle 187/283 thanks to fordest. Black in color with a decent sized tan head. Aroma is of bourbon, wood, chocolate, prune, and alcohol. Taste is huge in dark chocolate and bourbon with coffee, wood, roasted malt and vanilla.

Bottle number 187/233 thanks to fordest. Pours a blackout color with a light tan head that sticks to the walls of the glass and seeps down slowly. Nose is bitter toll house dark chocolate chips, chocolate liquor, booze, and roasted coffee. Taste is liquid dark chocolate truffles, mounds bars, toasted coconut paste / extract, almond, bitter coffee, vanilla. Mouthfeel is thick like motor oil but goes down crazy smooth and fills the mouth with heat and its syrupy texture. "I feel like this beer is raping my mouth," was an accurate statement.

Huge thanks to fordest for this one. 2006 Silk Screen bottle #187/233. Pours with a huge, dark brown head over a very black body with some lace. Aroma of nutty fudge, bourbon, oak, vanilla, light coffee, liquid amazingness, florals and soil. I literally smelled this beer for 15 minutes without tasting a single sip. Taste is chocolate, coffee, oaky, brandy, bourbon and a bit nutty. Very smooth and silky mouthfeel.