Another Bourbon Barrel Aged beer, a porter this time. Is this the new thing? BBA seems to be the current rage for dark beers, and with good reason, it combines the great tastes of the dark brews with the heady alcohol taste of bourbon, who doesn't like that? This is a western brewery, my first time trying their beers. Here goes:

Wasatch Brewery - Bourbon Barrel Aged Polygamy Porter

Stats

• Brewery: Wasatch Brewery - Salt Lake City, Utah, USA
• Alcohol Content: 9.5% by volume
• IBUs: 25
• Company Description: Far from your run of the mill hooch, this special reserve beer is refreshingly complex with notes of dark chocolate, vanilla and toasted malt. Aged for 9 months in Buffalo Trace barrels, this limited release porter will be gone faster than you can say "white lightning".

Presentation
This beer comes in a 12 oz can, with old style artwork related to the polygamy theme, likely due to the high number of Mormons in Utah. This is very similar to their regular Polygamy Porter art work, the can color is different and there is some additional information on the other sides of the can. The brewery webpage indicates they have recently gone to cans for their beers for ecological reasons. This is my first Wasatch beer but I think most of their beers come in 12 oz cans.

The Beer

• Appearance: Pours dark brown with a thin tan colored foam head with minor lacing. The head dissipated rapidly.
• Aroma: Aroma was mostly boozy to me, there were hints of vanilla but very faint.
• Taste: Flavors of bourbon, some dark malts and lightly noted vanilla. I generally find with BBA beers that the bourbon taste is primarily what I get.
• Mouthfeel: Light bodied with the bourbon boozy finish. Lightly carbonated.
• Drinkability: As with all the BBA beers, they are sippers in my book, to be savored by drinking slowly or sipping. I am not a booze drinker so these kinds of beers are more for sipping, one per night.

Rating and Final Thoughts

I gave this beer a 4.0 rating on Untappd, which is in line with the rest of the 500 souls that rated it with an average of 3.95. One of my friends liked it more and rated it 4.25. Bourbon barrel aged beers seem to be the new rag in dark beers, it adds some boozy tastes to otherwise good beers, this can be good and it can detract from the original beer also. As I mentioned, I am not generally a hard liquor drinker so the BBA beers tend to be more sippers for me, I still enjoy them but it is like sipping a good bourbon more than quaffing a beer. I guarantee if you like BBA beers you will like this one though so look for it.

4.0/5

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