Maestro - Bourbon Barrels
Alesong Brewing & Blending in Eugene, Oregon, United States 🇺🇸
Barley Wine - Barley Regular|
Score
7.69
|
|
Our bourbon barrel-aged barleywine, Maestro, is as bold, as hearty, and as extravagant as it sounds. Brewed with a mountain of caramel malts, flaked oats and brown sugar, this blend booms with warm toffee and sweet molasses flavors, harmonizing perfectly with toasted coconut aromas and hints of bourbon spice from the barrels. For our third iteration of this luscious blend, we’re striving for balance and drinkability in this 13.2% goliath of a brew.
Every time we recreate a blend, we finesse our work, choosing certain barrels, brewing with specific ingredients and tasting for the exact qualities we want. Learning from the last blend, we continue to grow. As for Maestro, we believe the bourbon barrels have a disproportionately large impact on its final flavors, hence each iteration is intrinsically linked to the barrels we use that year.
This time around, we chose to use all 6-10 year Heaven Hill bourbon barrels. The American oak flavor in these barrels is vibrant, presenting aromas of coconut, vanilla and butterscotch. But with a somewhat mature aging time, the bourbon flavor comes across into Maestro clearly: with a subtle cinnamon spice character.
We’re not always purist, style-or-die type brewers, but we think a bourbon barrel-aged barleywine should have quality oak and bourbon character upfront, followed by notes of caramel and toffee, and just enough hop bitterness to balance the blend’s sweetness, making a quaffable, albeit gigantic, beer.
In this third manifestation of Maestro, we blended for harmonies of hop, malt, and bourbon barrel character that all melt into one another, making a beer that you couldn’t really say is too far one way or another, besides delicious.
Every time we recreate a blend, we finesse our work, choosing certain barrels, brewing with specific ingredients and tasting for the exact qualities we want. Learning from the last blend, we continue to grow. As for Maestro, we believe the bourbon barrels have a disproportionately large impact on its final flavors, hence each iteration is intrinsically linked to the barrels we use that year.
This time around, we chose to use all 6-10 year Heaven Hill bourbon barrels. The American oak flavor in these barrels is vibrant, presenting aromas of coconut, vanilla and butterscotch. But with a somewhat mature aging time, the bourbon flavor comes across into Maestro clearly: with a subtle cinnamon spice character.
We’re not always purist, style-or-die type brewers, but we think a bourbon barrel-aged barleywine should have quality oak and bourbon character upfront, followed by notes of caramel and toffee, and just enough hop bitterness to balance the blend’s sweetness, making a quaffable, albeit gigantic, beer.
In this third manifestation of Maestro, we blended for harmonies of hop, malt, and bourbon barrel character that all melt into one another, making a beer that you couldn’t really say is too far one way or another, besides delicious.
Sign up to add a tick or review
8.2/10
—
Appearance 8
Aroma 8
Flavor 8
Texture 8
Overall 9
On tap at Brouwer's Cafe - 18th Anniversary event, pours a clear amber with a small beige head. Aroma is full of complex bourbon barrels, vanilla, and dark fruits. Flavour is rich, complex and balanced, with an elegant bourbon character, dark dried fruits, toffee, and almost no hops. Rich, complex and not harsh at all. Excellent.
Tried
from Draft
on 25 Mar 2023
at 05:35
7.9/10
—
Appearance 8
Aroma 8
Flavor 8
Texture 8
Overall 7.5
Flaska från Hopt, 2021. Rostfärgad/kopparbrun, smutsvit krona. Sött, snällt kryddig, marsipan, likörpralin, Bourbon. Lätt och lättdrucket, men kanske en gnutta mycket sötma och avsaknad av komplexitet. Helt ok.
Tried
on 06 Jun 2022
at 20:41
8.3/10
—
Appearance 8
Aroma 9
Flavor 8
Texture 8
Overall 8
Bourbon (Heaven Hill) barrel aged barleywine from this successful craft brewery in Oregon, from a 50 cl bottle. Moussy, medium sized, yellowish pale beige, slowly opening and diminishing head on a hazy, deep copper brown beer with wine red glow and disparate bubbles slowly rising up around the edges of the glass. Aroma of hazelnut liqueur, quite intense sweet bourbon and lots of vanilla-exuding oak wood, chestnut, toffee, candied fig, baked banana, tawny port, old brown honey, Sultana raisins, caramel sauce, hint of wool cloth. Candied, dense onset, candied cherries and figs, raisins, bit sticky-sweet even but kept in balance by a dim, vague sourish undertone; soft carb, full and vinous to even somewhat syrupy mouthfeel, made ‘heavier’ by the alcohol. Toffeeish, very caramelly middle, chestnutty and hazelnutty as well, with lots of that ‘praline-like’ residual sweetness, brown-honeyish and thick, but a strong vanilla-scenting oakiness and warming bittersweet bourbon counter the sweetness a bit and in this case bring a certain level of drinkability. Hop bitterness remains low (28 IBU in this case but of course largely hidden under all that malt and booze); woody and bourbon-y vanilla fill the nose retronasally while a long, warming, ‘liquid praline’ finish is established, with clear and clean malt flavours still composing the basic flavour track, as it ought to be in a good barleywine. Not exuberantly hoppy as many American barleywines once were, but at the same time too intense, ‘big’ and bourbon-forward to be called an English style barleywine; in spite of not neatly belonging to either subgroup, this Maestro feels very classic, even old school, which is a feature I really appreciate in any barleywine. Worth its considerable price tag and probably well-suited for extended cellaring.
Tried
on 01 Jun 2022
at 13:57
7.9/10
—
Appearance 8
Aroma 8
Flavor 8
Texture 8
Overall 7.5
Bottle at the 'Mere, Happy New Years (Tipples had) Tastang, thanks to Tips 21/01/22. Almost clear golden amber with a decent white cap that veers edgewards. Nose is stewed fruits, caramel, fruit syrup, herb, spice. Taste comprises caramel, sweet malts, dark malts, spice, brown sugar spattering. Full bodied, fine carbonation, semi drying close with a balanced kiss of alcohol. Decent mellow barreled affair.
Tried
from Bottle
on 21 Jan 2022
at 15:49
8/10
—
Appearance 8
Aroma 8
Flavor 8
Texture 8
Overall 8
Bottle at happy new year tasting. At Colin's. 21/01/2021. Many thanks to Tipple. A clear amber orange coloured pour with a a halo of white head. Aroma is sweet, brandy snap sugars, grape, brown waxy, raisin.. Flavour is composed of sticky, sherry, sti ky grape, brandy snap sugars. Palate is semi sweet, sticky woody.. Mellow moderate.
Tried
from Bottle
on 21 Jan 2022
at 15:48
7.5/10
—
Appearance 8
Aroma 8
Flavor 7
Texture 6
Overall 8
Bottle shared in Hazlemere - cheers to Adi. Pours clear deep honey-gold with a bubbly white head. Big sweet flavour, some butterscotch, vanilla, light bourbon, bready malts, soft leafy notes. Full bodied, oily and chewy, with fine carbonation. Sweet and warming to finish. Solid.
Tried
from Bottle
on 21 Jan 2022
at 15:45