Lost Abbey The Angels Share (Bourbon Barrel)

Brewed by Port Brewing/Lost Abbey
Style: Barley Wine
San Marcos, California USA

Bottle. [After party @ Papsoe, thanks buddy] Dark mahogany like color. Aroma was very complex with notes of dried fruit, mild bread, wood and vanilla like, very vinous, mild underlying hoppy feel as well. Over the palate came an explosion of notes with raisins, prunes, toffee, and almost sweet chocolate like. Full bodied with an average carbonation and thick mild alcoholic texture. Heavy sweet flavor with good counter bitterness and a hint of acidic as well. Lingering complex dried fruity and bread like finish. Oh man this one was extremely well brewed. 8 / 3 / 9 / 5 / 17

Tasted at the Real Ale Festival VIP session. Pours a murky brown with a light head, nice lacing. Aroma of caramel, roasted malt and wood. Very smooth and drinkable. All around, it was a pretty good beer but it really didn’t live up to all the hype. Everybody that I talked to at the tasting agreed so I will be looking to try it from the bottle and get a second opinion.

Extremely loud pop that echoed in the large warehouse I’m drinking this in. The beer is EXTREMELY carbonated. Violent carbonation is visible in the murky dark brown/black body. A GIGANTIC 6 finger foamy tan head sits on top. Very nice lacing. Fortunately it didn’t gush because I had it pretty cold. The aroma is strongly molasses and brown sugar meets bourbon and oak. Smells like an old ale. Some strawberry hops. Chocolate and dried wood. Caramelized malts. The flavor is rich milk chocolate that morphs into a deeply caramelized molasses and dark fruits like dates and raisins. Bourbon is strong but doesn’t impart alcohol. Surprisingly smooth for 12.5% ABV. Rich full body that isn’t sticky but has a nice lingering quality. I like this beer a lot!

Thanks again to Agentsteve. Careful this one pops and tries to spill out. Deep dark brown, bourbon, caramel, brown sugar, chocolate, molasses, malty, sweet, creamy, dark fruits.

Bottle courtesy mreusch. (BIG thanks to Matt!) Heavily carbonated as it blows the cork out, pours a deep mahogany with a lingering dark cream head. The nose is exquisite with subtle bourbon, candied and brown sugars, and a touch of butter. The flavor is equally complex with an additional burn in the end. Great beer.

375, corked and baled. Gusher. 08 release. Nearly opaque mahogany with dense creamy tan head, super rocky at first. Thick sheets of lace. Big bourbon and wood nose. Creamy body with nice wooly carb. Woody, bourbony, caramelly. Maybe too much bourbon and too few other flavors, but still delightful.

Pours super dark brownish amber with a massive rocky 3 finger head that almost overflows the snifter. Retention and lacing are excellent. Smell is wonderfully sweet with brown sugar and caramel. There is a definite boozy bourbon aroma as well but extremely well integrated with the sweetness of the malts. I actually also got the slightest hint of sour in the nose at the finish. As much as I would like to "buck the hype", this is one of the best tasting beers I have ever tasted. It’s wonderfully creamy with molasses and caramel up front with the bready malts. The bourbon is present but very subtle and plays with the sweet vanilla tastes and dark fruits. In a word, spectacular. As mentioned before, for a bourbon barrel beer this one is incredibly smooth and creamy yet highly carbonated. The bubbles just tingle the tongue...so, so good. This is my first Angel’s Share and I have to say it’s one of my desert island beers. The flavors are so big yet so well balanced, the hype is completely deserved.

375 ml bottle corked and caged from Lost Abbey Patron Sinners club. Cork opens with a loud pop, and some "smoke". Pour is deep brown, some ruby highlight. There is an expansive four inch tan head, which is quite lasting. Nice lacing left behind as it slowly retreats. Pretty pour. Aroma is bourbon oak wood barrel, vanilla and some pepper spiciness. Behind that is some smoked maltiness. It was hard to get past the Bourbon on the nose, that was most of what I smelled. Taste is a nice malty Barley wine, toasted vanilla, a bit of pine hops, then a pretty big dose of the Bourbon. I also get some cola taste in this as well. Makers and Coke? There is some graininess mid-palate. The finish is boozy, and quite sharp. Palate is right for the beer, not overly big, but sufficiently full to support the big flavors. The oak in the beer made this beer very drying. Later that evening, my mouth was so dry I felt like I had been sucking on wood chips. This beer was good, but seemed dominated by the Bourbon, and as such, became a bit one dimensional for me. As this approached room temperature things integrated a bit better, or my palate had been overwhelmed, either way it improved. I had high expectations for this beer, and was hoping for a bit more complexity.