Brabant Barrel-Aged Wild Ale - Avery Brewing Co., Boulder
Style:
Wild Ale
Serving Type:
Bottle
Alcohol by Volume:
8.65%
Aroma:
You can smell the alcohol in this beer. It has hints of oak and loads of sweet cherry wine on the nose
Appearance:
Pours with a slight reddish tint but is pitch black in the glass. Maintains a thin foamy tan head with liberal amounts of lacing
Flavor:
Tastes like a barbecued barley wine, but lighter... Flavors I noticed were dark roasted malts, tart fruits and chalky chocolate
Mouthfeel:
Body is surprisingly light and bubbly considering the appearance
Overall Impression:
Avery's Brabant has a rich body and delicious flavor profile. For a wild ale, this beer lives up to it's name, it's lively and mysterious. This beer is definitely worth the price of admission.
Avery's Brabant is really a beer unlike any other that I've had. Avery describes this beer as a Wild Ale that has been aged in Zinfandel barrels. Sounds pretty awesome, right? Well, front the first pour of the Brabant I could tell Avery wasn't joking about the Zinfandel barrels. This beer is dark, almost black, and when pouring it into the glass you can see a dark red, almost purplish, tint to the beer... not unlike a dark red wine. The Zinfandel did rub off on this beer quite a bit. Every time you put the glass up to your lips you get a nose full of rich red wine with just a faint hint of caramel malt. As the beer warms to room temperature you can really pick up on the Zinfandel flavor. While chilled this beer is a bit more complex. Straight out of a lightly chilled bottle the Brabant is light and bubbly with a tart cherry twang and a dark chocolate aftertaste. The beer remains dark throughout drinking and retains all of the sweet malts and chocolate flavor, even as the Zinfandel flavors intensify exponentially with each degree on the thermometer. The combination of flavors in this beer is definitely different compared to Avery's other 12 ounce bottles. If I had to compare this Wild Ale to any other beer I've had before it'd have to be a quadrupel or a barley wine... only lighter.
The Brabant is no session beer and should be slowly sipped from a wide mouthed glass. At more than eight and a half percent alcohol this beer is roughly twice as strong as most beers. But if you think of this as a wine then it's actually pretty weak... Either way, this beer just isn't something you'll probably have more than one or two of. After all, Avery only produced 694 cases of this stuff. Needless to say that you should pick up a bottle of this if you happen to be lucky enough to find one.
Whether you are a wine drinker or not this beer has a lot of great qualities. The Brabant does a fabulous job of blurring the line between beer and wine. It smells like a glass of red wine should, it has a dark red tint just like a good wine and the taste is very reminiscent of a Zinfandel. One the other hand this beer is still very much a beer. The body of the Brabant is light and bubbly like a filtered lager.
If you enjoy strong beers and are looking for something with a unique mix of flavors and texture then you'll really enjoy the Brabant.
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