Quaff Bros Brown Chicken Brown Cow - Listermann Brewing Supply & Mfg

deadonhisfeet

Kentucky

4.25/5  rDev +5.7%
look: 3.5 | smell: 4 | taste: 4.5 | feel: 3.5 | overall: 4.5

Poured from a 22oz bottle into a Brooklyn Brewery snifter. The beer pours out extremely dark and murky brown with very little light getting through. Carbonation is extremely low (as is common for barrel-aged beers) and there is not much head, just a bit around the edges clinging to the sides of the glass. The nose is pretty up-front and bourbony with notes of vanilla, oak, cake batter, and a hint of chocolate.

The beer has a full body and a nice firm mouthfeel. I get rich, toasted malt flavors up front like shortbread with a bit of hazelnut, then at mid-palate the bourbon flavors come charging in. Strong flavors of oak, vanilla, bourbon, and a hint of molasses take over the palate and warm things up, but the beer never ever gets ``hot''. It is velvety smooth, yet carries a complex profile. On the finish, you get just a nice, warming brush of alcohol that lingers momentarily.

Overall, this is simply an outstanding effort from Listermann and Quaff Bros. It is exactly what I hoped it would be. The most obvious beers I would compare this to would be BBC's Bourbon Barrel Big Brown (which very few people have had) and Founders Backwoods Bastard (which many people have had and even more seek out). However, one must keep in mind that any comparison with Backwoods Bastard would be unfair since that beer is a full-fledged Wee Heavy (at 10.2% ABV) and this is merely a brown ale (at 7.5% ABV). Flavor-wise, this beer nearly stands toe-to-toe with Backwoods Bastard, but the additional malt in the Founders beer lends just a bit more body. If I could change anything about this beer, it would be to make the mouthfeel creamier. I'm not sure how a brewer does that, but there it is.

It's unfortunate that malty beers like brown ales, Scottish ales, and Scotch ales don't get aged in bourbon barrels nearly as often as big roasty stouts. The oaky vanilla tones obtained from bourbon barrels perfectly complement the sweet, nutty, toasty flavors of these beers. I'm giving this beer a high overall rating because there is just no way that a mild, ordinary, boring, run-of-the-mill brown ale could stand up to this. This is the Taj Mahal of brown ales. Even the empty glass smells awesome when you're finished.

Serving type: bottle

07-29-2012 00:32:32 | More by deadonhisfeet

Bitterbill

Wyoming

3.88/5  rDev -3.5%
look: 3.5 | smell: 4 | taste: 4 | feel: 3 | overall: 4

American Brown Ale aged in Bourbon Whiskey Barrels.

Purchased from The Party Source, online.

An extremely dark brown, almost black, pour with a very small head of foam that quickly dissipated to a ring around the glass and some islands near the middle.

The bourbon is up front in the smell with vanilla also pretty dominant. A light note or 2 of dark fruits, a note or 2 of dark chocolate and a honey sweetness.

It tastes of bourbon and vanilla, light note of chocolate, honey like sweetness. No alcohol taste that I can detect but there's definitely some warming going on. On a sadder note, the carbonation is near zero. It hurts the mouthfeel but the flavours are interesting and put the hurt at a minimum.

Good stuff, but I *think* some light to medium light carbonation would have drawn out the flavours more precisely.

Serving type: bottle

07-26-2012 23:32:41 | More by Bitterbill