I can’t think of anything that isn’t better if you soak it in whiskey barrels. Maybe a baby. You shouldn’t soak babies in whiskey barrels. But everything else? I say go for it. Particularly if it’s already a tasty beer, like Upslope’s Brown Ale. The Boulder-based brewery took their malt-heavy Brown and put it in Leopold Brothers rye barrels for four months. Sort of jumps off the page, doesn’t it?
The Barrel Aged Brown Ale is part of Upslope’s new Lee Hill Series, a quarterly batch of experimental, limited release beers. This is the first in the series, and if it’s any indication of what’s to come, I can’t wait to see what’s next.
What you have to love about this beer, is that they use brown sugar and snow melt, which I’m pretty sure are the two basic building blocks for heaven.
The beer pours a rich mahogany—dark with a tinge of red on the edges. There’s not much to the nose—a faint hint of wood and whiskey, but nothing pronounced. You get lots of brown sugar and caramel up front on the sip, but the sweetness steps aside as the oak and rye kick in. There’s just a bit of spiciness here, mixed with a hop bite (this Brown packs 50 IBU’s). It’s smoky, a bit charred, and a hell of a ride from the first sip to the last.
Brewery: Upslope Brewing Company
City: Boulder, Colo.
Style: Barrel aged brown
ABV: 7.6%
Availability: Limited, released in July, find it if you can