Aaaah murrays. Where do we start. We have a fond appreciation of this brewery. We bought this bad boy after Kane’s wedding in February 2015 and we have been aging it until now. This brew has been oak aged in red wine staves. It’s 10% alc vol and we are salivating at the prospect of murdering it.
After wrestling with the wax coated covering, we finally popped the cap and the olfactory was on alert. We get oak, we get resin hops, we get stewed fruits, and toffee malts. We can tell this has been aged for some time. Poured into a pint, there was a big bubbly head that faded quite quickly leaving a dark amber looking beer with some carbonation bubbling up. You can smell this beer sitting on the table! Can get the stonefruit elements of peach and/or apricot now in the glass. First sip is huge. This is a full bodied barley wine. You almost chew it its that heavy. There is a balance of astringent alcohol and bitterness from the hops used, with a lingering stonefruit flavour and bitterness sitting on the backplate that seems to coat the mouth now. Moderate carbonation in the mouth. We get that mild sourness that red wine can yield upon imbibing. We love the fact that half way through the glass, the smoothness for 10% alc vol is really impressive. Some beers the imbalance shows up majorly but not here. As the beer warms, you get more sweet stewed fruits, and really nice peach and apricot aromas with a big swill of the glass.. The oak is well consumed by the hops and toffee malt backbone. There is a mild spiciness now clinging to the uvula. So rich, so tasty, so complex. This is a heavy beer and not for the faint hearted. We have a serious head buzz by the end of the pint. Like a good wine, it gets better by the end. Craft beer lovers will really savour this. This is almost a 10/10.