Bourbon Barrel Bearded Lady 2013... - Magic Rock Brewing

You might remember that last year we barrel aged some of our Imperial Brown Stout ‘Bearded Lady’ in Bourbon Barrels. The first of the kegs was released at the European Beer Bloggers BBQ we held at the brewery. We liked the results so much that we decided to make the beer an annual special release and we went straight out and sourced another 4 barrels to age a batch for this year. That batch is now ready and instead of just filling a few kegs we decided that this would be the 2nd of our annual release 660ml screen printed bottles.

This years BBBL has been aged in Austin Nichols (Wild Turkey) barrels for 10 months and was bottled yesterday. The bourbon has rounded out the flavour of the original beer, making it a much smoother drinking  experience. As well as the black screen printed bottles we decided to wax seal the tops as an extra barrier against oxygen pick up, in case you’d like to age the beer to see how it develops.

The vast majority of this years BBBL will be bottled and available from our web shop on Wednesday 10th July and the usual places soon after. We also produced two 20 litre kegs of this years batch one of which will be on at The Hanging Bat, Edinburgh on Thursday as part of the Edinburgh Independent Beer Festival. There will also be a few of our other beers on the bar and myself and Giada will be around all day playing on the bars 50litre brew kit, come down try the beer and say hello!

Here’s the tasting notes from the bottle:

Bourbon Barrel Bearded Lady: Imperial Brown Stout 10.5%

 “10 Month Bourbon Barrel Aged Bearded Lady, our uncompromisingly big and beautiful Imperial Stout. Born from our Dark Arts recipe she uses masses of magical malts to deliver deep chocolate, rich coffee and vinous berry flavours all complemented by a balanced yet subtly spicy hop profile. Powerful, robust, intriguing; yet decadently smooth and sumptuous, the lady demands respect… The barrel ageing softens the beer adding rich bourbon, sweet vanilla and a hint of Oak.

 Already barrel aged for 10 months this beer will continue to develop in the bottle for many years.  Annual Release 2013″