Boulevard’s Bourbon Barrel Quad hits shelves Tuesday
Boulevard doesn’t make action figures, but that doesn’t mean they don’t make collectibles. Bourbon Barrel Quad, the latest release in the Smokestack Series, will start appearing on shelves today, and this is one of the local brews that you should be drinking now and cellaring. But you won’t be the only one thinking about doing that, so if you’ve got any inclination to do so, you should pick yours up in the early part of the week. Boulevard left The Pitch a bottle of the seasonal brew that first debuted in 2008. And here’s what brewer Dustin Jamison had to say about BBQ.
- Twitter: @Boulevard_Beer
- Boulevard employees unload bourbon barrels from 4 Roses last December.
Bourbon Barrel Quad is a takeoff on The Sixth Glass – the Belgian Dark Strong Ale. That base beer is aged in bourbon barrels for between eight months and two years. The beer of different ages is then blended with cherries.
This year’s iteration has cherries in the nose and finish again, but as the tasting notes suggested, it has a lot of oak flavor. There’s no doubt that barrels were used for aging. It’s 26 IBUs and has an alcohol by volume of 11.8 percent (so split it with someone or several someones).
We might as well call today Bourbon Barrel Day. Tonight at 5 p.m., Bier Station (120 E. Gregory Blvd.) will be tapping Cathedral Square’s Bourbon Barrel Quad. It’s the only place in the city that you can get it, and you can meet some folks from the St. Louis brewery as well.
As always, drop a line on where you snagged a bottle or your thoughts on the latest batch in the comments.
