Lost Abbey The Angels Share (Bourbon Barrel)

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

Draft at the Bistro’s BA Fest! Nose of bourbon, molasses, and dark fruit notes; Hazy dark brown with a big brwon head; flavor of bourbon, caramel, sweetness, and light hop bitterness.

Bottle, Merritt Island Throwdown. Pours warm mahogany brown with nice white head. Aromas and flavors of bourbon, chocolate, coffee, apples, and pears. Quite the bouquet but flavors are more impressive. Soft, silky palate, low carbonation. YUM, preferred to the regular Angel’s Share.

Bottle: Aroma of bourbon, vanilla, oak, and malts. Too much bourbon in the nose. Poured dark brown in color with a small tan head. Cloudy. Sparkling. Flavor is medium sweet. Tastes of bourbon, malts, chocolate, oak, vanilla, and toffee. Medium body. Dry texture. Average to lively carbonation. Bourbon, vanilla, and oak dry finish.

Sampled at Dickinsonbeer’s Hoboken gathering (thanks to beastiefan2k, actually!) - sometimes the barrel makes all the difference - this tastes very much like "regular" angel’s share, but with some toasted coconut, slightly lower sweetness, and more noticeable wood - the bourbon is fairly apparent - the complex notes of dark fruit and chocolate I detected in the original are absent in this one - maybe I’m just tired of bourbon-aged beers, but this barrel turned this into a much less impressive beer - tasty, but hardly transcendent like the original.

(Cask at GBBF, London, 5 Aug 2008) Very dark brown colour with foamy, pale brown head. Malty, woody nose with notes of dried fruit, prunes and raisins. Rather vinous, dominated by the wood aromas. Malty, woody taste with dark fruit, raisin, prunes, bourbon and coffee (or rather what we in Sweden call kaffekask - coffee with a generous splash of liquor in it). Long, vinous and woody finish. Very warming. Excellent stuff!

From bottle at Lost Abbey before RBSG on 08/02/2008. Deep brown body with a medium brown head. Big bourbon and yeast aroma. Bready caramel, yeast and light bourbon flavor. Full body with moderately low carbonation and a smooth finish. - 8/4/9/4/18-4.4 Bottle courtesy of Immy on 04/19/2008. Dark brown body with ruby highlights. Molassas, maple, vanilla aromas with caramel hints and a light bourbon ending. Sweet caramel and molassas flavor, light vanilla and caramel. Medium full body with moderate carbonation.

Bottled. Surprisingly nice. Overrun by bourbon, but it is a sweet, mellow bourbon, like baby corn, backing up a pretty pungent barleywine. Deep and complex, with notes of fine caramel, smoke, and buttery cookies. With its huge head, one of the best looking barleywines I’ve seen. Very well done.

I absolutely love the fact that on my last tasting while living in Toronto, we followed up Labatt Dry 10.1% with this. It really does not get any better, does it? 375ml bottle graciously shared by Harry, drank with him and Blankboy. Well i thought the original version was already bourbon barreled so what exactly is this? Bourbon bourbon barreled? I loved the original, let’s see how this is...Nice slightly bourbon aroma - nice hint of roast and chocolate underneath. Lovely. Looks great - very dark brown, big creamy brownish head. Fantastic taste - bourbon, roast, chocolate, sweet dark malt, alcohol. I do prefer the original because the bourbon stays a little more balanced in the background while in this one it is brought out forward, but still - this is terrific. Thanks so much for sharing Harry!