Central Waters Brewers Reserve Bourbon Barrel Scotch Ale

On draught at the brewpub in Marshfield, Wisconsin. Pours a clear cola brown brew with a creamy off-white head that slowly dissolves to a white ring with excellent lacing. Aroma of sweet caramel malt, toffee, distinct brown sugar, licorice and coconut. Taste is medium to full bodied, hardly any carbonation with flavors of caramel malt with bourbon and coconut. Finish is sweet, sugary with caramel and bourbon flavors. Pretty nice barrel aged scotch ale but no outside growler sales.

Central Waters does a bourbon barrel version of half their line-up (and usually intensely bourbony), which is great, because I love anything barrel-aged, but not so great in that many of them start to taste similar. Still, this was very good, and different enough. Big bourbon aroma and taste, with some backtaste of almost buttery caramel and a sweet nuttiness. Hard to identify this as a Scotch ale – but we’ll call that an example of creativity. Recommended.

GABF 2006. Ruby tinged copper. Nose is big bourbon. There’s some sweetness to this as well. More bourbon in the taste, caramel, sweet , creamy malts, and syrupy notes. Faint peaty notes here but it’s still mainly bourbon. Body is medium with mild carbonation. Ends with more bourbon, sugary sweetness and caramel.

Draft... GABF ’06... Dark, clear, copper ale with a small, creamy, khaki head. All I smell is bourbon. With lots of bourbon and caramel, the flavor leans toward the sweet side of balance as the style dictates. Medium to full-bodied with an oily mouthfeel and moderate carbonation. Tangy then dry finish.

GABF 2006. The beer pours to a dark mahogany/chestnut body with a thin white head. The aroma is barrel, sweet light powdered sugar and dark malts. The flavor is smooth. Sweet powdered sugar, nice light peatiness. Good balanced barrel aging. Nice!