BridgePort Bourbon Barrel Old Knucklehead

Brewed by BridgePort Brewing (Gambrinus Company)
Style: Barley Wine
Portland, Oregon USA

Bomber shared by toncatcher at the Alesmith Release;Thanks! Nose of plums, caramel, and woodiness; Amber with a medium off-white head; flavor of bourbon, hop bitterness, oak, caramel, and raisins.

Bottle:   Heavy reddish caramel, somewhat hazy, large frothy light beige head, fairly sticky lacing.   Nose is a little odd.   Has some cereal aspects, a smidgen of alcohol, with a soft hop presense.   I can tell that its a bit malty, but it doesn’t have that sweetness I usually associate with the style.   Moderate malt background on the tongue, a little astringent, very little sweetness, minor hop background, without really any Bourbon aspect that I can pick out.   I might be able to say Oakish, at the very most.   Backend has a little bit of cardboard on it.   Decent amount of hops, but this beer really needs to be a touch maltier and sweeter.   I just don’t see this one aging for too long.   Body and mouthfeel are moderate.   Could easily be bigger, with more malt.   There is a certain astringency that lingers.   It has a chemical like youngness to it. &Nbsp I would almost call this green but its not biting.   Oh, and where the hell is the Bourbon?   I was soo looking forward to this one especially after doing so well with their Harvest Ale.   Average.

Appearance: Pours a reddish-brown body with a full, frothy, off-white head. Smell: Weak aroma with just some tired, musty pale malts, a pinch of white pepper, and a handful of sawdust. Taste: Pale maltiness with vague tastes of caramel and cinnamon spice. A few wooden popsicle sticks. Earthy bitterness. Light, nominal boubron characteristics are all insignificant. If it didn’t say "bourbon" on the label, you could easily miss it. Astringent, peppery finish. Mouthfeel: A bit beyond medium-bodied. Medium carbonation. Drinkability: No thanks. Hardly even average. I dare say the barrel aging didn’t pay off one bit.

Beautiful appearance. Nice hop aroma to this. This is quite nice. Sweet, but with a good hop bite. Quite woody, but overall a solid barleywine.

22 oz bottle. Pours a clear amber to dark copper body with a small fizzy beige head. The nose is fairly unimpressive, just a bit of toffee malt and a slight bourbon booziness. Lots of alcohol vapors when you get right in there with your nose. Unlike a lot of bourbon beers, the bourbon in this is completely up front and the main focus of this beer. Heavy bourbon and caramel sweetness up front makes it taste more like candy than beer, and the bourbon just takes over after the initial taste and doesn’t let go. I don’t even like the bourbon flavor that this beer has, it tastes very much like it’s Jim Beam because of that weird spicy sweetness that it has. Medium bodied with a slight malty stickiness and a lingering bourbon heat, moderate soft carbonation. The longer the finish lingered on the worse that it got, so I kept taking gulp after gulp so that the finish didn’t have a chance to linger about. Not the best effort from these guys, but I’ll keep trying anything that they make anyway.

22oz bottle, courtesy of wickedpete. Thanks, Pete! Pours a bright, dark orange-amber color; khaki head with patchy fine-bubbled lacing. Tea-like malts, earthy malts and red fruits in the aroma. Medium-to-full mouthfeel: loads of dried red fruits, tannic tea-like malts, and brown sugar; the barrel presence is slight; tannic tea, mostly, with some chewy malts. Lengthy finish, showing tea and maltiness and sugar.

A vigorous pour into my 25cl tulip glass summons forth a creamy, dense, four-finger thick, nicely amber tinged, tan colored head. The beer is a deeply red stained, dark amber color that shows a brilliantly clear, red dyed, dark golden color when held up to the light. The aroma smells of washed out toasted malt, candied berries, faintly grassy hops are noticeable at first. At first blush the aroma seemed fairly bland, and very tame for a Barleywine. As the beer warms & opens up though some additional complexities start to come out, though it never gets the big aromatic presence one would expect from a Barleywine. Aromas of cherry liquor, some fruity brandy notes, a bit more herbal hops, and biscuit like malt add a little more interest to the nose.

Lightly sweet, with a viscous full mouthfeel that was almost a surprise coming off the week aroma. The beer has a light Bourbon Barrel influence that in addition to the usual notes of butterscotch, vanillin, warming alcohol and lightly spicy wood seems to play up an anise like flavor and some soft brandy notes (including a raisin and grape note). The Bourbon barrel is quite tame here, this is actually at a perfect level as it is just another component of this beer rather than a quite dominant one that many a Bourbon Barrel beer has. There is quite a bit of hop character here as well; nothing on the order of say a Bigfoot, but there is a nice herbal component, flavors of ripe pine needles, some candied citrus zest and a touch of menthol. The carbonation is a bit aggressive, but a quick swirl of my glass gets rid of the excessive fizziness and a touch of the pepper-like carbonic bite. I really like the fruity, sort of brandy like, perhaps cherry-cordial-esque note that this beer picks up; it is subtle, but quite pleasing.

I like that this is pretty easy drinking for a Barleywine (assuming you get rid of the excess carbonation) and the light barrel influence is a huge plus. Having said that the malt complexity is a bit lacking and the aroma is down right, even deceivingly so, weak (though it is decently complex as it warms up). While this started out slow, as I work my way through this 22oz bottle it really starts to come into its own; the flavor ends up really becoming quite well integrated, mellow (this can be a good thing even in a Barleywine), but distinct. A good beer, that is much more enjoyable than I was expecting.

22oz bottle, 10%ABV. Deep mahogany. Aroma of cherries. Not much vanilla or oak. Perhaps chunks of bourbon barrel were thrown in the tanks. Flavor is nothing you would expect from something that should be so hot. Bland, boring, and too much fizziness. MY 850th USA BEER!