It’s been a day filled with anxiety at work (for both me and my wife) and so, when the day was done, I had to crack open a big beer. I put this in the fridge a week or so ago, wanting to get some of the larger bottles out of the boxes in the garage. This bottle was part of a three pack of special Sam Adams Barrel Room Collection beers I found at Sam’s Club just after Christmas. I already had the Thirteenth Hour Belgian Stout, which was pretty good.

Location: Poured into a Stella Artois chalice at my home in Bloomington, IL.

Numbers: 10% ABV, 17 IBUs, 9 SRM, 265 Calories

Ingredients: Malt: two-row pale, wheat; Hops: Tettnang, Tettnanger, Saaz; Yeast: Belgian ale strain; Special: Kosmic Mother Funk

Appearance & Aroma: It’s amber in color and very clear. It has a ton of carbonation in it, giving it a huge bright white foamy head, with great retention and lacing. The aroma has lots of Belgian yeast like spiciness.

Taste & Feel: The body is full and the mouthfeel is fairly crisp from the carbonation. The flavor up front is sweet and caramel-bready with a good amount of spiciness. There’s a bit more caramel-bready sweetness in the middle before the Belgian spiciness really opens up in the finish. The spiciness, with the caramel-bready maltiness in the background, lasts for a minute or so in the aftertaste with a nice alcohol warming sensation.

Food Pairing: It went good with the pizza we had for dinner, but it would be better with a grilled steak covered with breaded onions and spices, or maybe some good BBQ with spices.

Overall Impression: The spiciness was exactly what I expected from a barrel aged Belgian style beer. It was fairly smooth and drinkable, with a nice amount of Belgian spiciness and a nice bready-caramel malt flavor up front and in the background throughout. Overall, it wasn’t bad, and I certainly wouldn’t turn it down if offered one.

My Rating:

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