New Glarus Unplugged Bourbon Barrel Bock

Formerly brewed at New Glarus Brewing Company
Style: Doppelbock
New Glarus, Wisconsin USA

Nice. From the bottle, this has an amber/red/brown body with no head to speak of. The aroma has toffee-ish malts, molasses, dark cherries, old apples, and Bourbon. Nice blending. The Bourbon grows in the flavor and threatens to dominate, but the sweet malts and fruit flavors balance it out. Could use some more hops... but I always say that. It finishes on a sweet, sticky Bourbon note. Nice.

<font size=-4><a href=http://www.ratebeer.com/Places/ShowPlace.asp? Wine and Spirits, Whitefish Bay, WI<font size=-1>

Yuck. Pours very dark red color, with absolutely no head. STRONG aroma of toffee, bourbon, and plum. STRONG taste of the same, with an overwhelming alcohol taste and viscous consistency. Maybe I got a bad bottle, but I won’t be trying this one again. Most went out to the lake via the drain. Disappointed, too, because I really like the beers from this brewery.

Bottle sample at Cincy Ratebeer Gathering. Poured dark copper color with a moderate light brown head that diminished slowly with good lacing. Good caramel toasted woody bourbon aroma. Medium to full body with a soft carbonation. Good well balanced bittersweet flavor with a heavy smooth bittersweet finish of long duration. Good doppelbock.

Deep copper pour nice tan head good lacing 4 Big malty bourbon aroma traditional bock grains some plums & raisen 8 Pal is full & well coated lightly creamy 4 Flavor is sweet overripe plums carmel light bourbon some butter 8 Nummm

12 ounce bottle from Historic Casanova Liquor in Hudson, WI (June 2007), sampled at cellar temperature from an Allagash glass. A smallish but quite persistent tan head tops the translucent dark copper/brass body.....aroma is certainly bourbon-inflected, lots of vanilla/oaky character here, but also plenty of caramelized malts, a hint of licorice and some fine cocoa powder.....body is as sweet and delectable as could be imagined, just a gooey caramel-vanilla creme at the beginning, but thankfully a just-right note of alcoholic sharpness arrives quickly to cut the near-cloying sugar, a bit of charred wood arrives after the midpalate and the beast dries out significantly, and thins just a bit, adding some sharp brett notes right at the finish, and perhaps a hint of Bordeaux....this is a nice sipper, and certainly does manage to integrate the worlds of bock, bourbon and wild yeast better than you’d have a right to expect....but still, it is not completely harmonious. Perhaps a year in the bottle? We’ll see....

bottle from boboski: pours a nice chestnut with a little to no head. more of an off white line around the rim. aroma is sweet toffee malt, bourbon, some dark like fruits and a hint of vanilla. flavour is much thinner than expected a very nice toffee malt, slight oak and vanilla. i got just a small spice in the finish. fantastic palate.

Aroma of sweet oak, bourbon, and malt. Pours a surprisingly lighter shad of brown. Brett completely dominates this beer. Horsey, sweaty leather tastes with alcoholic malt and bourbon in the background. I love doppelbocks and I struggled to drink this. It’s complex, but I do not enjoy the barn flavors present here.

I’ve heard some mixed reviews of this beer, and it is obviously very highly rated on this site, so I was curious to establish my own perspective. I found it to be a unique and quite enjoyable drink. Appearance is a brilliant and clear tan color. Aroma is complicated...there is a lot of caramel malt (which you’d expect from this style), but also some toffee and alcohol esters from which I took away an impression more of brandy than bourbon, but I’m far from an expert in either. So far so good. Flavor is far from what I expected. It is very fruity for a bock, with a significant amount of cherry-notes, which may be the handiwork of the wild yeast in this beer. It wasn’t the over-the-top maltiness of a bock that I expected, and to be quite honest, don’t usually enjoy. So, this departure from traditional bock was OK with me. All-in-all, I enjoyed this beer. I’d call it very original although I wouldn’t necessarily call it ground-breaking. Nonetheless I would recommend it.