Boulevard Smokestack Series - Bourbon Barrel Quad

Brewed by Boulevard Brewing Company
Style: Abt/Quadrupel
Kansas City, Missouri USA

Serve in Trappist glass

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2010 Bottle# 0035 of 11248. A - Hazy ruby brown with a 1/2 inch yellowish head that forms thin islands of super tiny bubbles. Nice collar for such a high ABV. S - Tart cherries and plums, bourbon, fruity toffee underneath earthy yeast. T - A barrage of bourbon soaked fruit. Tart cherries, plums, figs, strawberries, and pears with a robust toffee malt. Vanilla alcohol blends through and almost turns to a sharp coconut flavor. Spicy yeast and a long woody bourbon finish. M - Full bodied, slick at first but a soft but moderate carbonation levels out the heaviness. It can be syrupy on big drinks. If you don’t like bourbon I wouldn’t recommend this because bourbon is a cornerstone flavor in this fine brew. The mouthfeel really adds to success of this beer. The carbonation is a little high for the style but helps with the high ABV. The tartness is complimentary and not overpowering. Break this out on a special occasion. A celebratory beer! Serving type: bottle 03-27-2011

Copper with a small off-white head. Aroma of bourbon, caramel dark sugar and alcohol. Sweet bo0urbon and caramel dominated flavour with oak notes and warm alcohol. Quite sweet, but reasonably balanced.

Bottle. [thanks after4ever]
Pours clear red with a small, creamy, off-white film head. Aroma has oak, caramel, vanilla, apples, sweet malts. Medium carbonation, fat and light oily mouthfeel. Flavour is sweet, caramel, vinious, raisins, vanilla. Warming and quite sharp.

I have drank this beer a few times over the past few years. I am not a big of bourbon aging and have stayed away from rating the beer because of that. However, I got to try an interesting aged bottled at a bottle share at Lukas in Martin City.
Batch 2 from 2010. So its a but more than 3 years old at this point.
The fun part of this beer is that it is all funkedified. Aroma has a great tartness from what seems to be a pleasant surprise from the barrel aging. Takes the edge off the stronger and alcohol heavy beer. There is a bit of sourness in the flavor but in general a lightened wild barrel character is now dominating. Love this aged bottles a lot more than anything fresh.

750ml bottle, No. 1638, Batch No. 2010-1 shared by (I think...) Matt ,at Zach and Matt’s tasting. Pours light murky reddish brown without much head. Aroma of bourbon and malts and cherries. Taste is boozy (Bourbon obviously) and bright and slightly sour. Taste is more of the cherries than the bourbon, and there are also some toffee and wood and vanilla notes. Finish is really nice, I thouroughly enjoyed this one.

750ml bottle - thanks rosenberg
Massivly heady aroma, no shyness in saying booz. Tons of esters, but that’s not surprising considering the expectations given the alcohol. Soft sweet but also sgary and boozy palate. quite a nice belgiann malt and hop combination, but the booze is so fucked up. Sorry Matti, but this was very bad value for money.

September 9th, 2011 - Boulevard Brewery’s Bourbon Barrel Quad was the highlight of my very first local beer tasting here in San Diego. A fellow craft beer fan in my graduate student housing complex said sent out a call and craft beer aficionados flocked to the site. Murky, deep and a healthy and hale red-orange, even in the glass this brew stands out amongst the crowd. The subtler smells were crowded out by the raucous atmosphere, but keen notes of cherry and dry barrel aging wood were sharp and poignant, even as they blended with the aromas of other open beers on the tabletop. Mild cherry flavors lead the charge on the palate, delivering a nice, lingering acidic edge and concluding with a deep, overripe sweet cherry aftertaste. Notably for a beer this reliant on cherry flavors, there was absolutely no hint of that cough medicine flavor that plagues beers of this flavor persuasion. A bourbon burn accompanies a generally heavy alcohol push, giving this beer a powerful but elegant touch of fruits and barrel aging that I find compelling.

Clear dark Red amber. Thick foamy head. Tastes like grass flavored nyquil. Way too strong. Tastes like bourbon...i don’t like bourbon. Thanks miley.

Not a bad brew at all. Thanks to you, generous folks at Hunahpu day 2013. Aroma is tart cherries, bourbon, fruits, and alcohol. Pour is opaque brown, with not much for a head. Taste is similar with tart cherries, subtle vanilla, some very subdued alcohol notes, and tons of fruity notes. I liked this one. The owner told me it was infected. I don’t really know if that was true or not because it didn’t seem too off to me. Either way, it was enjoyable.

Sample aged 1.5 years. Cherries much muted, especially in flavor. A little leather and dust. Better fresh in my opinion, but good none the less!