Bluegrass Bourbon Barrel Heine Brothers Coffee Stout

Brewed by Bluegrass Brewing Company
Style: Sweet Stout
Louisville, Kentucky USA

Serve in English pint

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750 from Liquor Barn Richmond. Big bourbon nose and taste. Cream head fades. Body is not super big for a coffee stout. Carried by the bourbon, for sure, for taste.

Bottle shared by a friend. Darkest brown pour with a thin beige head. Aroma is a balanced blend of bourbon, chocolate, vanilla, oak and coffee. Flavor starts with vanilla and bourbon, then the chocolate sets in before a roasty coffee finish. Drank a lot of coffee beers during this tasting and this one came out the winner for me. I would have thought the one that diluted the coffee flavor with a barrel would be on my bad list, but this one is just so perfectly balanced between all the flavors (including the coffee, which didn’t disappear after all) that I had to give it the nod.

750 ml bottle. This may be the bottled version of a draft-only release the St. Matthew’s brewery came up with called Heine the Elder that I had on cask during Louisville Beer Week in 2010. Aroma: Bourbon, bourbon, and more bourbon. Lots of vanilla notes in this one. Very little of the base beer aroma comes through. Appearance: Dark brown pour, fleeting tan head. Little to no lace. Taste: Did I say bourbon? Bourbon. Vanilla. A little bit of oak. Alcohol. Pecans? Nicely hopped finish. A little coffee. Palate: Medium, nicely carbonated, a little sticky. Overall: Decent, but BBC has a tendency to overpower the base beer whenever they do a bourbon barrel release. Perhaps the barrels are a little too new and have a little too much raw bourbon left in them. This one was decent, but only because the base beer had enough oomph to stand up to the bourbon flavor.

Black with a creamy tan head. Coffee chocolate and bourbon aroma and taste with a dry roasty finish.

5/23/2010: BBC Bourbon Barrel Heine Brothers Coffee Stout... Aroma: Rich dark chocolate and espresso with hints of vanilla, roasted malts, and char. Appearance: Opaque, deep brown to near black color with a large, dense head that is tan to brown in color that builds rapidly as the beer is pours and slowly bubbles away. Flavor: Wow, lots of creamy vanilla bourbon throughout with some suggestions of chocolate and coffee in the background; the sweet bourbon seems to dominate most of the experience with a smooth, rick, and deep dark, dark chocolate flavor coming through in the finish; good presence of alcohol that vents through the nostrils when swallowing. Palate: Medium-full body; smooth and silky; milky, mellow mouthfeel. Overall: Quite good, if you like bourbon; regardless, it is a bit one-dimensional since the bourbon does dominate and the base coffee stout is barely noticable underneath.

Growler fill (draught) from Party Town in Florence, KY. Rating #3 for this beer.

Draft sample. Poured dark brown color with medium brown creamy head that mostly lasted with good lacing. Medium roasted coffee and sweet woody aroma. Medium to full body with a smooth texture and flat carbonation. Medium roasted coffee and sweet flavor with a medium bittersweet finish of moderate duration. My expectations where met.

Draft at the brewery in St. Matthews. Pours a very dark brown, opaque in the middle and clear brown around the edges, with almost no head whatsoever. Aroma of coffee, vanilla, oak, roasted malts, and bourbon. The flavor follows the notes of the aroma very closely, with the barrel notes winning out over the coffee and roasted malts. Medium-full bodied, with a mouthfeel that falls somewhere between syrupy and oily. Vanilla and coffee on the finish. I’m a sucker for barrel aged beers, and this one is pretty good. However, the barrel dominates the flavor a little too much, and if the alcohol content were higher, that contrast would probably be more dramatic. I’d like to see this blended more evenly, but it’s still a beer worth ordering if they have it on tap.