Hi folks, its been a long while since i have posted. This might be another rare post but I wanted to post about a new beer I just tried and get it into #beersaturday for this week. I bought this beer a couple weeks ago at my favorite beer store in Montana, Big Heads Bottle Shop. It is a limited release from Firestone Walker, the Califonia brewery that is gaining a solid reputation for quality beers. This one was another bourbon barrel aged beer, comes in a nifty box around a bottle. Snazzy!
Firestone Walker Brewing - Bravo
I'm going with a picture of the bottle first, I will show you the box later.
Stats
- Brewery: Firestone Walker Brewing Company - Paso Robles, California
- Alcohol Content: 13.2% by volume
- IBU: 28
- Company Description: We proudly present the 2017 Vintage of Bravo, our Imperial Brown Ale aged in retired American oak bourbon barrels. Although Bravo was the first strong ale brewed for our Anniversary Ale blending program over ten years ago, it has yet to see its own bottled release, until now. Balancing rich toasty and chocolate malt flavors with a gentle balance of noble hops, Bravo is brewed to showcase barrel flavors with massive bourbon barrel notes that morph as the beer warms in the glass.
Packaging
As you can see by the photos above, this limited release comes in a kind of dull cardboard box, cardboard colored light brown with black graphics. This is pretty standard for their limited release beers. The bottle inside is equally as uninspiring from a graphic perspective, white front and neck label with gold graphics and black letters. Kind of understated but I think that is what they are going for here, high quality beers with simple labels, not overdone. This bourbon barrel aged beer was made in 2017 and fermented in oak bourbon barrels. There is a nice story on the back of the cardboard box.
The Beer
-Appearance: A brown color, not overly dark with a very thin head on the pour.
- Aroma: It had a clear boubon odor with some caramel.
- Taste/Mouthfeel: A very boozy taste, maybe not overly strong but it is the predominant taste in this beer. Brown ales are generally not a strongly flavored beer so adding the bourbon aging, accentuates the bourbon over the generally mild brown ale. The beer was somewhat carbonated in the mouth, and had a harsh finish.
- Drinkability: As with most BBA beers, they tend to be sippers, as I like to say. Slow drinking and if you have more that one, good luck with that my friend.
Rating and Final Thoughts
I gave this a solid 4.25 rating on Untappd, it was a good bourbon barrel aged beer, like I mentioned above, pretty boozy on the palate but with a brown ale, that is mostly what you will get when you age it in bourbon barrels. It is a very strong beer, at 13.2% abv, it will curl your hairs if they are not already that way! Firestone Walker had a pretty solid reputation in the beer brewing world of craft beer in the USA, so you can expect a pretty decent beer from them pretty much all the time.
4.25/5
Thanks for the read, this will be posted in #beersaturday also, so check it out over there also and give me a vote. Cheers friends, and maybe I will start posting more often. Time will tell.