Boulevard Imperial Stout

Boulevard makes two imperial stouts.  The regular year-round one, Dark Truth, is made with Belgian yeast, brown sugar, and a complicated grain bill of barley, wheat, rye, and oats.  For Boulevard Imperial Stout, they tweak Dark Truth's grain bill slightly (adding spelt) and then age a large portion of the beer in whiskey barrels.  The final beer is 40% fresh, 60% barrel-aged.  I like Dark Truth, so I've been looking forward to a chance to try this version.  I found the chance last December, though I forgot to post it here.

As you can see from the above video, this beer is crazy carbonated.  What's even more amazing is its head retention.  Note how it looked five minutes after the above video:

No change.

The aroma is a perfectly balanced blend of plums, coco, and licorice.  Faint underlying flavors include whiskey, bread, and very mild smoke.  The fruity-plum scent presumably comes from the Belgian yeast; as in Dark Truth, it adds a pleasantly fruity twist to a style normally known for intense roasted coco and coffee flavors.

The whiskey and whiskey barrel flavors are a little stronger here than they smelled, but their integration is nonetheless seamless.  A mild hint of ethanol (slowly growing stronger as the beer warms) is no match for the vanilla and burnt sugar flavors.  Nearly equal to those are the aforementioned Belgian flavors, chiefly plums and some cherries; an unexpected but welcome hop bitterness; bittersweet chocolate; and some rye malt.  Yes, they all exist together in harmony.  No one component overpowers the whole, which cannot be said for most barrel-aged stouts. There are vague suggestions of licorice and smoke.

I could have guessed this based on both the base beer and the amount of carbonation evident in the glass, but this Imperial Stout is dangerously drinkable.  I find it borderline fluffy, hardly the first choice of words most stouts bring to mind.  If you took away the subtle hint of alcohol flavor this beer might be fatally smooth.

Boulevard Imperial Stout might possess one of the most perfectly balanced flavor profiles I've seen in a barrel-aged stout.  Blending fresh and aged beer was a wise decision on Boulevard's part.  Rather than obliterating their Dark Truth stout, they added additional layers to it.  Quite impressive, and a fair bit better than Dark Truth.