Boulevard’s Bourbon Barrel Quad out in 750 ml bottles today

Boulevard’s latest limited-release Smokestack Series beer, Bourbon Barrel Quad, starts showing up in liquor stores across the city today.

Bourbon Barrel Quad uses the Boulevard Smokestack Series’ Sixth Glass as a base, which is fermented on Oregon cherries, aged in bourbon barrels and then blended from Four Roses Bourbon oak barrels. Unlike in past years, the 2014 Bourbon Barrel Quad wasn’t blended with fresh beer prior to bottling.

“It’s 100 percent barrel-aged,” says Boulevard brewmaster Steven Pauwels. “In the past, we’ve used some fresh beer to blend back, but this year we used barrels two times. So it’s a little bit of first use and then a majority of second-use barrels.”

Pauwels says to find the right blend, “it’s all about tasting the different barrels, and then coming up with the right blend that we like.” He adds, “A lot of it has to do with consistency too because we make different batches. So we want to make sure that the different blends that we make are consistent for that year.”

Don’t expect this year’s Bourbon Barrel Quad to mirror past versions.

“Is Bourbon Barrel Quad the same beer year after year? I would say no, it isn’t,” Pauwels says. “It is the same principle how we make it, but every year is a little different.

“As we make this beer every year, we learn and we also look at where there is room for improvement,” he continues. “Since last year, it’s probably a little more cherry-forward than in the past, and I think that’s a good thing. I think it makes the beer more complex. If it’s just barrel-aged, then it’s more toffee and vanilla, I would call those layers two dimensional. The caramel, vanilla, toffee, oak — all of those notes are in the same vein. But then we put cherry in it, you get an extra layer on top, almost like a third dimension, and makes the beer so much more interesting and more layered. Every time you take a sip, you find new things. And that’s what we’re after with this beer: Just making it as complex as possible.”

As for the history of quads, well, there really isn’t one. It’s a Belgian-influenced abbey beer, a stronger version of a tripel, Pauwels says, but it was really made up.  

“It was basically invented by a marketing company about 20 years ago,” Pauwels says. “So it’s kind of sad, but that’s the reality.”

Boulevard provided The Pitch with a bottle to preview. Ours poured with a dark-brown, almost amber color. The head was nice and foamy, with a big whiff of caramel, toffee and vanilla. The cherries emerged on the first taste and left me with a warm feeling for the rest of the afternoon. It’s a beer to sip on a crisp fall afternoon, and you might want to go easy; the ABV is 11.8 percent. Still, it’s a smooth beer, for which Pauwels credits the barrel aging.

“I think it’s just a combination of aging the beer on oak,” he says. “It mellows it out, and all of the sharp edges go away. But also, by adding the cherries, it has a little more acidity in the beer, so it makes it a little more easy and more approachable that way.”