Hoppin Frog Barrel Aged BORIS The Crusher

Brewed by Hoppin Frog
Style: Imperial Stout
Akron, Ohio USA

Vanilla and oak on the nose, with some chocolate and roasted malts. Pours black with a thin tan head. Intense whiskey flavor with loads of chocolate and coffee as well, very rich flavors, intense dark chocolate, also come bitter hops in the background. Very intense and creamy with a lot of oak and rich chocolate flavors. Excellent!

Rating #100 for the beer and #800 for me. 22oz bottle of batch 2. Pitch black pour with a thin light brown head. Chocolate nose with vanilla and oak and a hint of booze. Whiskey flavor up front with oaky vanilla. Coffee follows next, makes room for chocolate, then shows up again for the finish. Barrel-aging well executed. Not overdone. Made an amazing beer even better.

Bottle generously opened at hellbilly’s 5th of July gathering -- my thanks to the AZ beer gods. Pours a dark roasted black with a reddish brown head. Smells of oatmeal, chocolate brownie, and vanilla. Hard to believe that this was aged in whiskey, because the flavor is unbelievably mellow and far from hot. The oatmeal shines more in this version than the original, along with added notes of hops and vanilla. Well done!

Dark brown pour beneath a dark tan head. Scents of caramel and chocolate all with alcohol interlaced. Smooth and velvety. A slight alcohol burn follows the mellowed out flavor of camp fire smoked malts and melted chocolate. Nice lacing on the glass. Finish combo of a bitter hop finish and alcohol leaves an awkward feel in the mouth. Warms up nicely but the alcohol continues to somewhat overwhelm this thick full bodied beer.

22oz bottle, via miketd. Pours a pitch black body with a small fizzy dark brown head that quickly receded to a thin ring. The nose is a great balance of Imperial Stout and whiskey. Heavy roasted malt and charred oak combine wonderfully, lots of vanilla and whiskey, some noticeable but not overdone alcohol. I’m getting a lot of chocolate as well. The whiskey and vanilla grabs me first with the Stout backing them up really well. There’s a ton of whiskey flavor here yet it doesn’t seem overly boozy or brash at all like many of these beers seem to be. Not too much in the way of hops, but they do come out a bit on the finish with more vanilla, char, and burnt malt. This is just incredibly smooth and drinkable for such a big beer, especially a whiskey barrel aged beer. Mouthfeel is smooth and full with a nice slightly oily texture and perfect soft pinpoint carbonation. Don’t know that it’s really an improvement over the regular version, as I thought that that’s a really good beer as well, but it certainly didn’t make it worse.

[Bottle] shared by tytoanderso. Pours deep, clear brown with basically no head. Aroma is eggy batter, light bourbon, and some greasy hamburger notes which were quite bizarre. Flavor is very roasty, bordering on burnt, almost no barrel influence, but there is a touch of coconut and vanilla. Mouthfeel is really thinned out compared to the non-BA version. Big let-down.

Aroma is lots of oak and some whiskey, coffee/roast, and a bit of ash. Taste is slightly salty, mellow oak, some sweet chocolate, oak, whiskey, and coffee. Very subdued, well balanced. Finish is slightly bitter, coffee, sweet. Yummy, but very subdued. Well balanced and blended. Oak, nice whiskey, and just a well made impy under it, but at the same time it was not mindblowing. Still, great.

750ml bottle. Thick, boozy aroma. Lightly charred malt. Heavily toasted vanilla bean. Maybe a bit of soy and molasses. Slightly ashy with an odd note of smoked Ancho pepper. Whiskey barrel asserts itself after the beer warms up. Chocolate drizzled malted milk balls. Pours a thick, oily black with virtually no head. Oily legs on the side of my glass. Flavor is incredibly boozy for only 9.4%. Lots of charred barrel. Heavy vanilla extract presence. A bit of salt and soy. Black liquorice and anise. Medium to full bodied. Slightly greasy texture. The finish is sharply stinging. This just seems like a thinned out and overly boozed version of the regular BORIS. Good, but far from spectacular BA Imperial. Really nothing here that stands out from others. Thanks Craig!