Beer Review: Innis & Gunn Bourbon Barrel Porter
photo by Kevin Gibson
This lighter style of bourbon barrel beer is perfect for winter sipping.
When the weather turns wintery, I join many other beer enthusiasts in craving robust beers like imperial stouts and other high-octane winter warmers. Not into the spice of the season so much, I go for beers that are chocolaty, roasty and/or boozy. And being from Kentucky, it’s tough to resist a beer that’s spent some time in bourbon barrels.
While out beer shopping recently, I came across a four-pack of Innis & Gun Bourbon Barrel Porter. Not an imperial porter, mind you, just a porter, a beer that barely clears 7.0% alcohol by volume. I had to know. Intrigued, I grabbed a pack of the beers. Would a porter hold up to the barrels?
Poured into the glass, the liquid is solid black, like an imperial style beer. Some porters can have a hint of translucence, with a brown-ish tint, but not this one. The creamy, tan head was a nice topper and the visual was tempting. The aroma speaks immediately to the whiskey barrel sweetness, with bits of vanilla, caramel and chocolate, plus other hints of what lies within.
The flavor follows through, although the first drink is when I knew for sure I was dealing with a medium-bodied beer. This was where flavors thinned out and the finish proved clean on the palate, with just a bit of the lingering malt sweetness found in the flavors. In other words, Innis & Gunn’s Bourbon Barrel Porter doesn’t stick to your mouth like a bigger beer would. At the same time, you’re still getting some of the characteristics you’ll get from an imperial beer aged in bourbon barrels, just without the booziness and chewy textures.
It’s interesting, because my senses expected a much more robust experience simply based on what my eyes and olfactory was telling them. This isn’t criticism so much as it is me telling you to be prepared. This is a quality beer, one I enjoyed quite a bit. The label even proclaims it as being “deep, rich and complete,” and for a porter it delivers on that.
As an aside, I took note of the bourbon barrel flavors in the beer. As you may or may not know, Innis & Gunn, which was named Scotland Brewery of the Year in the 2019 New York International Beer Competition (this beer also won a gold medal there), goes about its barrel aging in a different way.
Rather than age its beers inside actual barrels, the brewery infuses the barrel into the beer through a process in which whiskey and Scotch barrels are dismantled, broken down into pieces, then toasted. Once they reach a desired level of toasting (five different levels have been identified to impart various flavors and nuances), the stave pieces are put into the beer for aging.
The process is more expedient, for sure, with the staves touching the beer at more points than in traditional barrel aging. And while purists might scoff, I sure as heck couldn’t tell a difference.
Bottom line, I give Innis & Gunn’s Bourbon Barrel Porter due credit for being what it intends to be—a flavorful beer with barrel influence that doesn’t take over your palate or get you drunk halfway through the first glass. Not a bad option for sipping while watching snow fall outside your window.