Commentist Beer Barrel: Every Puppy Has Its Day

Hello, Commentists! Sorry for my absence these past two weeks, but I was out wandering the woods with Hillary Clinton last week and couldn’t find a signal. Did you know she wrestled a grizzly bear out there? Mainstream media won’t talk about it. I don’t know what they’ve got against her.

Losing can be hard to process. Because all of us here are dumb enough to care about football, we know that. Many of us have already seen our teams eliminated from playoff contention. Most of the rest—everyone, really, except probably for the goddamned Cowboys fans—will see our teams either miss the playoffs or get knocked out of them. In that spirit, this week I’m bringing you a review of Contemplating Waterloo, a gin barrel aged saison from Adelbert’s Brewery in Austin, Texas, and one of my favorite new beers of 2014, when it first made its debut.

But hold up a minute: Gin barrel aged? That’s not a thing. You don’t put gin in barrels. It’s a clear liquor, and if it aged in barrels, it’d be brown. Except! The Treaty Oak Distilling Ranch, also in Austin, has put its Waterloo Antique Barrel Reserve Gin in bourbon barrels. I’ve sampled the gin on its own in the past, and it tastes like a sort of bourbon-gin hybrid, a mixture of gin’s botanicals and the smooth, woody goodness of bourbon.

Contemplating Waterloo itself pours translucent gold, maybe just barely shading toward reddish. The head’s fluffy and airy immediately after pouring, but it soon pulls together into a dense white layer that leaves an intricate and sticky lacing on the sides of the glass when it’s tipped. The scent is strongly suggestive of pineapple, with a bit of white chocolate underneath. The white chocolate, probably a product of aging on oak, is still there when I sip, but what seemed like pineapple to the nose opens up into a more complex array of flavors: Lavender, sweet orange, clove, and of course juniper from the gin. That juniper is definitely the featured player here, as it probably should be if you’re going to advertise your gin barrel aging. Going from gin to whiskey barrels and from whiskey barrels back out into beer has softened it quite a bit; it’s not like I’m drinking a martini, but it still gives the saison a little extra zing. Here’s the thing about this beer: Despite the out-there concept, there’s nothing incredibly unusual about the way it tastes. This is, at heart, a very smooth and easy-drinking barrel-aged saison and a downright dangerous delivery system for a hefty ABV of 9.1%.

lady snow says: God, the juniper in this!

make it snow says: I know, right?

lady snow says: It’s so good! And I’d love to get one of those hoodies that has a pouch for your cat. But that doesn’t have anything to do with the beer. They only do Belgian styles, right?

make it snow says: Yeah, only or almost-only.

lady snow says: I’m so curious what inspired them to age a saison in gin barrels. [reading label] Oh, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And I agree, I think the citrus flavors from the saison really work well with the juniper. And the whole thing’s just so herbally soothing. I want to take a bath in it.

make it snow says: The lavender, right?

lady snow says: Yeah!

tl;dr: Gin in whiskey barrels. Gin out of whiskey barrels. Beer in whiskey/gin barrels. Do not buttchug.

Grade: Saisons can be hit-or-miss for me, and barrel-aging them can be tricky, but this is an all-around success and I’d recommend it to anyone who doesn’t, like, hate juniper or some weird shit like that.

make it snow is an alot of beer and holidays enthusiast. If you’re not done shopping, get done shopping! (make it snow is not done shopping.)