Captain Lawrence Smoke from the Oak (Rum Barrel)

Brewed by Captain Lawrence Brewing Company
Style: Porter
Pleasantville, New York USA

I’m biased, I really enjoy rum so I really enjoyed this beer. Lots of rum flavors coming through, not so much complexity in terms of the beer overall. Great finish with the rum. I think more experimenting should be done with rum barrels.

Thanks to Blankboy. Ruby/black with a huge frothy pancake mix colour head. Aroma: Yeast, lemon, smoke, coffee and slight pepper. Flavour: Pepper, cinnamon, coffee, vanilla almost peppermint, peat finish. Nice!

Bottle (750ml). Shared by blankboy with me, garthicus, gregclow, jerc and mabel. Slow gush on opening. Clear deep ruby-brown, solid creamy-foamy lasting light brown head. Sweet medium roast malt, sour oak resin, sweet hint of rum. Taste.... really the same, yeast and more lemon sourness, lighter oak resin - simple and smooth. Light body, acidic, nicely carbonated, quick malt finish, a little lemon jangle on the linger... I like it!

Bottle, batch 2, pitch black color, with a light fluffy tan-colored head, yeasty, fruity, pruney, dark chocolatey nose, with some winey okey, vanilla, rum barrel accents, with some mild smoked bacon, mochaish, cocoa powder notes, with a hint of black coffee in the aroma follows through on a medium-bodied palate with a yeasty, fruity, sweet roasted, chocolate malt, mochaish character, with some winey, raisiny, light smoky undertone, vanilla, oaky, rummy flavors, within a mellow warmth mouthfeel, with some dark chocolate, coffeeish accents, leading towards a vanilla, roasty, light smoky, warming bittering finish.

Bottle. Body-nearly opaque with a thick ring of bubbles and medium film of bubbles. Nose-buttery, candy, light funk, lots of nose from the barrel, light rum. Taste-light coffee, bitter, alcohol on the backend, light rum, medium to high CO2, cola, rum comes out as it warms, watered down Sprite, soda water, watermelon, fig, raisin, very well done.

Bottle, batch 2. Aroma of sweet rum, tobacco-like smokiness, lightly roasted, lightly cookie malt. Flavor was 1 part rum, 1 part the same malt. Enjoyable, but was let down by the level of complexity.

Bottle, batch 2. Pours black with no real head. Aroma of sweet rum, alcohol, and a roasted malt background. Flavor of rum and slight roast, but for what it is, it’s somewhat mellow and drinkable. Overall it was ok but quite dominated by the rum with hardly any of the background porter coming through. Kinda bland but not much complexity. I just wasn’t into this. 6/3/6/3/13 (3.1/5)

Batch 2; Sampled November 2008
Pretty darn well carbonated, a careful pour into my large Tripel Karmeliet tulip rises a full-two fingers above the rim of my glass, for a total of seven-fingers of height. The head is a nicely browned, dark tan color. The beer is a dark, concentrated amber / brown that approaches black in color and the beer is pretty opaque as not a hint of light passes through it when held up to the light. The aroma smells of roasted grain, a weird, fruity rum-like note (with a bit of plum in there) and perhaps a touch of funk (I sure hope not though as I had enough of the funk in batch 1). The aroma is significantly burnt, at times smelling like burnt plums, burnt whole grain toast and there is also a significant, though at first not noticed, phenolic smoke character to this beer. The smoke can come off as a burnt vegetal note at times, but does add a savory, almost salty character to the finish of the nose. A touch of spicy alcohol also seems to come from the Rum barrel, though the barrel influence in the aroma is somewhat subtle.

Lightly sweet, savory, a bit hot and this finishes with a smoky phenolic note that sort of turns into a vegetal & plastic like flavor in the long, lingering finish. The upfront sweetness in this seems contributed by rum (both the alcohol and a touch of fruitiness), this beer quickly dries out though as the beer flows across the tongue. This has a nice roast character to it with notes of burnt cocoa, a touch of burnt acidity, a roasted nut note, a chalky burnt grain husk note and a burnt graininess. This is fairly light bodied and, if not for the hot alcohol and phenolics, this would be down right quaffable. Other notes of tart plum / prune, a touch of white pepper, a touch of brown sugar, fig and perhaps just a hint of cola.

As the beer warms up it becomes a lot more drinkable and balance, it loses a bunch of the harsh alcohol and roast notes and just becomes a bit more enjoyable. An interesting beer, it still doesn’t quite work for me, but is much better than batch 1. I am a bit surprised how tame the Rum character is, with a 12 year old Rum, I would expect a lot of rich Rum character, but that is just not the case.