Boulevard Sixth Glass Quadrupel

Brewed by Boulevard Brewing Company
Style: Abt/Quadrupel
Kansas City, Missouri USA

Sampled at the 8th Annual Music City Brewer’s Festival. Hazy brown-orange, light tan head hangs around. Aroma is alcohol, raisins, rum, prunes. Taste is potent, prunes, raisins, yeasty esters, alcohol warmth in the finish.

750 ml bottle. Pours a large, thick, foamy, pitted, off-white head. Clear, reddish mahogony body with abundant bubbles. Aroma is of Belgian yeast fruitiness and spicy, clove phenols, caramel malt, and hints of raisiny Special B. Some alcohol comes through, as does a touch of cinnamon. The flavor is made up of sweet, caramel malt, a little Belgian spice, and the occasional piece of dark fruit. Alcohol comes through big time on the palate - it’s somewhere beyond warming, but not quite boozy. Definitely warms the throat and belly. Palate is sweet up front with a dry, candi sugar crisp finish. Lively carbonation. Overall a very nice beer that could use just a bit more depth in the malt profile to really push it over the edge.

Corked and caged. Meringue head, rocky, atop a nice ruby body. Belgian yeast nose, overspilling the glass, more than a hint of alcohol (8-9%). Liquid cherry juice and light woody raisins. Big alcohol kick in the mouth but relatively smooth - if only spirits could be so smooth! Some higher-order alcohols sort of dominate the fruit, and leave it no chance to develop, but surprisingly it doesn’t feel like that big a deal. Medium body with little carbonation. Faint molasses/raisin. The whole is very well integrated, very enjoyable, but lacking the standout malt complexity I expect from this style.

750 ml corked and caged bottle purchased at Gomer’s in Lenexa, Kansas. Batch 68347 stanped on bottle. Opens with a loud pop. Pour is hazed caramel brown orange with a two inch ecru head. Head falls slowly with sticky lacing. Aroma of clove grassy yeastiness, with bright brown sugar sweetness behind that. Caramel malt in the back. Taste is initial big clove yeast, followed by grassy caramel malt sweetness. The finish has some light alcohol present. Palate is medium, actually pretty light for the style. Medium carbonation, and as mentioned a dry somewhat boozy finish.

Dark brown pour with a thick head. This one has the aroma and the flavor right - dark fruits and brown sugar, spices, raisins, and maybe a bit of wood... very tasty... but it was lacking a bit of depth, and the alcohol showed right through, to the point of being a bit astringent. Good effort, and I love the bottles from this brewery, but this one definitely needs either some age or some more complexity to cover that booze.

Fairly light in the color dept. for "this sort of thing". Some might say boozy for this one, I sort of would agree but it’s a semi-complex booziness with excellent brandy and sherry aftertastes, wrapped around a pretty enjoyable toffee sweetness. More or less bitchin;...

In short: A sugary fudgy Abt-ish beer with some refreshing (hopping?) orangy flavours. Good at first but a full bottle is just too much sweetness. Below average for the style.
How: Bottle 750ml. Consumed when 6+ months old. Sent to me by mreusch, thanks a lot Matt
The look: Cloudy light brown body topped by a very small beige head
In long: Nose is scarily mainly sweet with only light fruity notes. Taste is an unusual mix (for the style) of sugary sweetness and refreshing fruity flavours. Fudge and some sugary caramel make the sweet side. Oranges, orange peels and such provide the refreshing side. The usual Abt dark fruits flavours are limited to a moderate raisins presence and maybe some berries. To relate it to a classic I’d say this tastes a bit like an Allagash Four with added brown sugar. Comes through as a cross between a sweet underhopped American barley wine and a Belgian Abt. At first the beer is good if only a little sweet, but by the end of the bottle I was getting really annoyed by that brown sugar/sweet fudge. Ironically I liked the Sixth Glass at first but it’s the sixth glass that I didn’t like.

Aroma of raisins and thick, complex caramelized sugars, though it was somewhat difficult to smell through the thick and viscous head. This bottle popped like a lambic. Very fizzy. The fizziness helped aid washing away some of the sweetness and came out more balanced as a result. Nice amount of Belgian spice, some residual hoppiness (surprising), viscous un-fermented sugars, and a whiff of smoke. Overall a solid quad. Well crafted.