Foothills Vanilla Bean Bourbon Barrel People’s Porter

Cask at the Brewtopia fest at Grapevine in Fort Mill SC. Dark brown pour with reddish highlights. Miniscule white head that faded quite quickly. Peaty roast malt and chocolate nose is dominated by vanilla. Tastes is a good mix of vanilla, oaky molasses, peat and chocolate. The vanilla is probably the strongest, but that accompanies the barrel very well. The "porter" is a bit lost in there. Pretty standard medium body. My friend thought this was too overpowered by the barrel. I thought this was actually a pretty good balance and even better than the regular barrel aged porter I had at the S.C. release event. This is much less barrel offensive and more drinkable.

Very nice beer, what a treat to have at the Grapevine Brewtopia. Nice pour, color is the same as the regular peoples porter. Nose is a bit subdeued at first. Warming helped out immensly. Having had the PVW Porter a few weeks ago I anticipated a much larger beer, not to fret though. Nose of light vanilla and warm dark sugar followed by a sweet roastiness. Mellow and sublime, the blending helped this beer not become the leviathan that would betray its cask heritage. The finish seems short and delicate, but as it lingers the vanilla bean shows. Delicious, and seemless as the signature goes. Well worth the wait.

Had on Cask at Tylers Apex WITH turdferguson. Pour is dark black with the mildest carbonation. I expected this to be the BA Peoples Porter aged with the vanilla beans but as I heard from the brewer it was a blend of the regular and BA version. As a result there isn’t as much barrel character as I would like. Vanilla comes through and plays a nice complimentary role, would have worked better in conjunction with the oak/bourbon character I was expecting. Does allow the base porter to come through though. However, I feel like this should have been all porter or all BA porter. The blend doesn’t allow the best aspects of either product to come through.

Cask at Tylers in Apex. First beer of the night and I was really excited. This was a bit of a letdown considering how much I loved the regular Pappy Van Winkle aged PP. I think the mixing toned it down a bit. Palate is a bit thinner than I’d like with some light roast, and cocoa flavors. The cask dry hopped Foothills Hoppyum that was also available blew this one away. Hope to this one again but maybe a bit better balanced or planned out.