Arcadia Bourbon Barrel Shipwreck Porter

Brewed by Arcadia Brewing Company
Style: Imperial/Strong Porter
Battle Creek, Michigan USA

22. Thanks, BeachBum25! Murky dark brown with caramel highlights. Headless. Laceless. Super sweet boozy bourbony nose. Intense shaking only dissipates the overwhelming bourbon aroma a little bit. Flat, thickish, somewhat sticky body. Bourbon, chocolate, and vanilla mid-palate. Long sticky sweet bourbon finish.
It’s worth noting that an hour later, the bourbon volatiles had decanted, and, while the beer was even flatter, there was coffee, chocolate, and roast intermingling with the oak and bourbon on the mid-palate, and it was a completely different beer. The bourbon is still overwhelming here, but the base beer tasted good in the decanted stage, and there might be some potential here.

Pours a three finger light tan head that leaves a good lace. Totally black color, no highlights. Oak nose. Good carbonation and heavy bodied. Flavor is smooth, some sweetness, with a good oak sharpness. Decent porter. 2008 vintage, $10.20 for a 22 oz bottle from Tully’s Beer & Wine Wells, Me.

500ml bomber bottle. $9.99 pricetag, ouch. Thick black color. A little bonus sweetness shines through thanks to the barrels. Wow. This one really manages to balance the bourbon barrel nuances with the roasty porter sweetness. Exceptional beer, so robust and full that I’d believe it if you if you told me it was 9 percent. Sort of a back-handed complement I suppose. Some light sandy hops come in mid-sip and then are quickly gone again, covered in the smooth chocolate roastyness. Exceptional beer.

(bottle - 22 oz) Dark brown pour with a puffy tan head. Aroma is very roasted with a good amount of coffee, burnt malts, wood, cream, and some caramel. Flavor is very rich and roasty with a lot of wood and bourbon flavors, coffee, roasted and toasted malts, and some dark chocolate at the very end. Rich, creamy, and really nice.

22oz bottle pours deep black with no head. Aroma of oak, bourbon, caramel. Dry initial taste with rich brown bread, sugars, slight chocolate and bourbon at the end. Slightly syrupy, but what do you expect for a strong porter. Not bad.

Bottle courtesy Beachbum25. Pours a dark brown with a thick tan head. Big malt bourbon and vanilla aroma. The bourbon doesn’t really blend as well as I had hoped with the malt. Big malty body, vanilla, bourbon and a touch of hop bitterness in the taste. Flavors start to blend a little better as it warms. Enjoyable, but I thought it could have been a little better.

Maybe its the heavy alcohol flavors that overcome the vanilla, oak and bourbon flavors. I like heavy alcohol porters but hoped for a more complex offering from Arcadia. Sampled @ World Cafe Live Winterfest.

From bottle pours opaque dark brown with thin rim of beige bubbles (no lacing). There’s bourbon and smoothed-out roasted malt in the aroma that comes through richly in the flavor and on into the finish. Texture is oily and body is on the lighter side for style, but it works.