“Bourbon Barrel Aged Imperial Pastry Stout. Conditioned on toasted pecans, marshmallow fluff, toasted coconut, and vanilla bean after being aged in Heaven Hill bourbon barrels. We advise sharing and enjoying this luxurious, intricate, and utterly excellent barrel-aged stout slowly, like a great wine, to allow the beer to open and highlight the lovely components on exhibited by this special brew Contains lactose.”

Glassware: Snifter.

Appearance: Solid black pour with a short and finely beaded brown cap. It gradually reduces and settles at the rim. Nice legs on the glass as we hook in.

Aroma: Smells good. Exceptional balance between the sweet and spicy Bourbon/oak and the rich, roasted malt structure. The toasted pecans are pretty subtle…picking up their nutty and mildly woody profile which is impressive considering everything else happening within the beer already. Definitely getting the coconut and vanilla too. The marshmallow opening up later on. Wow, it’s all here.

Flavour: Pow! Is this The Bruery or Banks?! They’ve hit this one outta the park. Seriously complex upfront – super roasty, nutty but also a tad sweet from the vanilla, marshmallow, Bourbon/oak etc. Actually the latter really doesn’t show through a whole lot but it’s not that big of a deal as it’s so incredibly well layered with everything else. A nice big roasty bitterness to finish too.

Mouthfeel: Dense AF. Full bodied, low-ish Co2. The 10% ABV is well integrated.

Overall: Just pure Pastry Stout goodness. Absolutely jam packed with flavour and character. Tell ya what if they could’ve pulled more out of the Bourbon barrels it’d be an easy 10. Still, a very impressive offering.