Bourbon Barrel Wee Mac

So last Monday I got a call from O-Dawg and it was big enough news to make me turn around and hit the nearest liquor store I could find. The newest King's Reserve limited release by Sun King is their Bourbon Barrel Aged Wee Mac. It is in cans at your local liquor store, just remember to go the refrigerated section like everything SK does.

My favorite everyday beer is Sun King's Wee Mac. I get down to the brewery almost every Friday because you can get an entire growler for $5. It's smooth and tasty. It has a strong sweet flavor but is light enough that it's still drinkable... nay, chuggable. When I heard that they were going to barrel age one of my favorite beers I needed to try it.

The Bourbon Barrel Wee Mac poured out a deep reddish mahogany. There was a nice lacing of off-white head floating on the top of the glass. It smelled like vanilla and bourbon laid over beautiful toasted malts and caramel. The flavor is incredibly clean. It has hints of caramel, toasted nuts and bready grains. The flavors imparted from the Bourbon Barrel aging gave it great vanilla and oak undertones. It all blended together very well. There wasn't much of a hop finish but the barrel aging made up for that with a solid finish of its own.

O-Dawg and I were just talking about how hard it is to find a beer with a lot of flavor that doesn't have high abv or crazy amounts of hops. The Bourbon Barrel Wee Mac is 5.3% abv and only 23 IBUs. They pack so much flavor into this beer despite the low stats. I could drink this everyday, all day if it weren't for the cost. I wish more people tried to impart this sort of flavor into every beer they make. It isn't quite sessionable but close enough for me. Maybe we need a new term, like American Sessionable and call it anything under 5.5% instead of 4.2%.

I give it a solid and resounding 5

Weigh-In: O-Dawg
This little treasure came in two packs.  Not two packs of bombers, like little Kings Reserve 12oz cans two packs. I really didn't know how to react to that when I was stopping in at the brewery to pick these up (price was around $20).

The Kings Reserve line of brews from Sun King are super tasty brews that end up (just like Dark Lord) taking up tank space for an extended amount of time with more than your average usage of beer crafting materials tossed in.  All that time in the tanks and beer material adds up to a great beer with a higher than usual price tag.  Did this put me off?  No.  Just a data point of reference.

The first can went down during the week with the wife.  Movie night with "The Apparition"!  Not a great movie, but not terrible...  The beer made up for the movie.  The second was de-stressing with friends over a nice oily maduro cigars.  In both instances the flavors came through as Big Guy described above.

Two points that weren't mentioned that I think I should add are there is a nice mellow bourbon finish that is just fantastic.  It is the perfect balance of booze heat and oak/vanilla balanced with the beer, not overpowering it.  The other point is that after half a glass I started to notice an almost buttery/cream flavor that was not unpleasant at all starting to coat my pallet.  I liken it to the buttery/cream flavor that you get during and after eating Blondies Cookies.  Makes you hungry right?  Mouth watering yet?

Easy 4