Mountain Goat Oak-Aged Rapunzel

A beer that is effectively outgoing head brewer Jayne Lewis' parting gift to the brewery, this is a project that began around 18 months ago and ended with a little blending. When Goat brewed their 2009 Rapunzel - a Belgian golden ale - some was transferred into an old oak chardonnay barrel, then released nine months later at the same time as the beer was being poured through the brewery's hopinator, allowing you to sample it three ways. It turns out that when 2010's batch was made, out came the barrels again, this time given 15 months to play with the beer. Just before release, a small percentage of the Three Golden Goats was added to the tank to give it a bit of spritz (if memory serves well, spritz was lacking in the previous barrel-aged version) and the result, when sampled from the tank, was rather spiffing. At first, it comes across very dry and winey, with some oak on the nose. Then it gets funky - in a good way - before sweetening up and giving your palate plenty to work with. NB There's not much of it.

Published June 15, 2011 2011-06-15 00:00:00