Captain Lawrence Imperial Smoke from the Oak (Rum Barrel)

Formerly brewed at Captain Lawrence Brewing Company
Style: Imperial/Strong Porter
Elmsford, New York USA

Serve in Snifter

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750mL bottle. Poured close to black with an easily-resuscitated, deep brown head.. looked awesome when resuscitated. The aroma picked up warm, smoked malts, brown sugar, and molasses with accents of vanilla, charred oak, and coconut.. dark fruit and peppery notes deep down.. I loved it. The flavor held serve.. toasted dark chocolate, molasses, and smoky malts at the core, with smoke weaving its way through the rest of the drink.. peppery notes, oak, brown sugar, and coconut accented.. rum kicked in toward the back and ended up warming the belly nicely. Medium-bodied and well-carbonated on the palate.. balance was spot-on.. I need a lot more of this.

(750ml bottle) Pours a black body with a small tan head. Aroma of smoke, caramel, rum, peat, roasted malt, and oak. Flavor of smoke, roasted malt, chocolate, rum, and caramel.

Bottle at the Cuvee de Castleton release. Pours a deep black to brown, heavier on the brown, with a thin beige tan head. Still smoky after a year, wood, faint caramel and rum. Smoke, toast, chocolate. Big earthy smoke, roast, smoke, warm alcohol. Sweetness, wood and light rum on the finish.

Bottle. Deep, dark brown with some ruby highlights as it thins out towards the bottom. A medium sized khaki head sits atop with plenty of foam bubbles. Aroma has a rich smoked wood character. Small salted meat character is also present, and some chocolate hanging out there as well. Really interesting flavor with the smoked malt character hanging around all the way through, and lingering for a long finish. Loads of chocolate, toffee, brown sugar, and a slight saltiness. I’m guessing the brown sugar may be something that I can attribute to the rum barrels. Hides the alcohol well. I’ve been digging smoked beers a lot lately, and this is a damn good example of how you can do this really well. Absolutely delicious.

750ml bottle shared with mattyb83. Pours dark black with a big frothy head which quickly dissipated to a big bubbly ring around the top. Wonderfully balanced aroma of rich chocolate upfront, followed by layers of oak and smoked malt and peat. The smoke aspect is more campfire with a smidge of bacon. Flavor is heavier on the smoke, as most rauch beers are. Other notes include wood tannin, hair of vanilla, chocolate and charred wood. Mouthfeel is silky and has some nice lacing on the glass. I’m all for it. Thanks matty!

1/31/11 bottle from schiller. reddish dark/importer brown tinted black with a spongy orange head. foam paints the inside of the glass. the aroma is not nearly as medicinal as the wine barrel version and the smoke is much milder. notes of choco, roast, vanilla, wood, brown sugar and slight camp fire. the flavor is much better than the red wine as well...very well balanced and integrated version of the aroma. rich, smooth and slick with perfect carbonation. 7.5/4/8/4.5/16

Bottle thanks to NYbeer! Dark black pour, dark lacing and a very sweet/smoky rum aroma. Flavor is woody campfire smoke, some creamy chocolate and finished with a long lingering smoke aftertaste. This one definitely grows on you as you drink it!

Bottle to snifter (thanks NYbeer). Pours black brown with a tan tight foamy head that fades to a foamy film and collar. Aroma is campfire and peat with a subtle sweetness of oak and sugar. Taste is more smoke and peat with wood and faint sweetness of candied sugar and vanilla. Palate is full and slick with a chaulky dry finish. Awesome stuff!

Bottle date of 2010; Sampled September 2011
A steady pour, that ends with a flourish, into my Lost Abbey Teku glass produces a fat-two-finger thick, pale cocoa tinged, dark tan colored head. The beer is an almost black color, that just shows that it is really a deeply concentrated brown color; the beer remains quite dark and opaque when held up to the light, but just might show a touch of an amber glow (but I could just be imagining this). The aroma smells of spirits and oak as I am visually inspecting the beer, a more focused look at the nose yields lots of dry, peppery, spicy oak notes; this is more spicy and dry than typically from oak, and I get some feeling that the rum character is part of this. Lots of toasted / roasted malt notes are noticeable, these are actually probably a bit more pronounced than the oak notes, and wait a minute, I completely forgot the smoke character (took it for granted maybe) which is actually the biggest aromatic note in this beer. The smoke lays down a savory base for all the other notes in the nose. The nose can seem to have a sort of green apple like note to it at times as well as some warm alcohol notes, both of which can be somewhat distracting.

Rich feeling and viscous as it first hits my palate, the smoke lays downs a savory base note to some roasted brown malt notes and the finish has some spicy oak notes as well as some cheap clear rum spirit character to it (though I wouldn’t really describe this last as hot). There is a fair amount of carbonation here, though it is not overly much, that provides a nice lively prickle which helds to move along the viscous body. There is also a fair amount of dark malt sweetness to this brew, but it is fairly well hidden by the savory smoke, slightly bitter and roast dark malt, and spicy oak / rum notes. Touches of chocolate are noticeable from the dark malt and this pairs well with the inherent smokiness of this brew.

In the end this is a fairly enjoyable beer, but it has a touch too much sharpness to it; both the oak and the booze contribute an edge that is just jagged enough to not make this the smooth, savory, sipping experience that it should be. I am not really sure what the rum adds to this (other than the spicy, somewhat hot boozy character), I would have loved to have tasted more of the concentrated, dark rum character that would have gone perfectly with the base beer (I don’t even know what the actual rum type was though).

UPDATED: SEP 7, 2011 Bottle. 25.4 oz. Split with and courtesy of Tommy Boy. Thanks again Tom, for these outrageous brews. This brew pours a deep cola black with a very thin, yet still fluffy tan head and some crazy spotty lacing down the sides of the snifter. The nose on this brew is mind blowing; it straight up smells like a chocolate covered Werther’s Original. All traces of smoke have been folded seamlessly into the buttery, vanilla-oak richness of the rum barrels; huge toffee scents mingle with rich cream and slight raisin hints. The aroma is almost enough to make drinking the beer seem a crime. Upon first sip, however, one is inundated with a wave of vanilla, butterscotch, smokey wood, dark ripe fruits, watery black coffee, slick milk chocolate, and amazing fucking rummy alcohol hints. Beautifully smooth and understated finish. Honestly, this shit tastes like a deranged cousin of Angel’s Share. I love this beer.