A kind (and now my favourite) onbeer.org reader generously mailed a bottle of Glenda Sherbrooke my way a couple of weeks ago (before the postal strike). Thanks Martin! This, of course is the latest Sherbrooke/Alley Kat oak-aged beer. This one is the Old Deuteronomy barley wine cellared in Glen Breton whiskey barrels from the Glenora Distillery out here in Nova Scotia, which ended up as the strongest bottled beer ever made in Canada. I got around to sampling it the other night (as a solace for the Canucks collapse) – having provided it a week or so of settling time after its long trek.

It presents a murky reddish brown, darker than the base beer (which is interesting as Glen Sherbrooke ended up LIGHTER than its base beer…). Scattered islands of head and very little carbonation. The aroma reminded me immediately of Old Deut, of which I have sampled many glasses over the years. It had that thick caramel and brown sugar aroma tinged with earthy hops. The Glenda brought out the alcohol nose more, along with some vanilla and dark fruit I normally don’t detect in the original. It seemed almost like a hot rum sauce in the aroma.

The wood’s effect on the flavour was fascinating. The barley wine origins remain present, with the rich malt and multi-layered body. But they are altered, spliced, if you will, with qualities of a decent whiskey. I get vanilla, earthy oak, dark fruit, sherry, a hint of tannin and a warming linger that resembles scotch more than beer. My taste buds keep saying this is a beer aged in rum casks, with all the brown sugar and caramel, and my brain has to keep interrupting with the truth. I stop to take note of this conflict. Clearly the richness of the Old Deut blends with the malt whiskey to create a rum-like amalgam.

I must also add that, at least in the early going, my brain kept saying “there is no way this is 18.5%”. The alcohol is disturbingly well hidden. Only near the end of the glass when my brain started feeling a little fuzzy around the edges did it become convinced of the beer’s potency (good thing I wasn’t studying that night). Take heed, young beer geeks.

I am intrigued how the oak did two things simultaneously. First, it toned down some of the more assertive qualities of the beer. The hops slipped away and normally I wouldn’t expect that level of sherry notes for a couple of years. Second it contributed an additional layer of flavour. The oak and vanilla cooperated to round out the beer. It also moderately thinned the body (although I don’t have an original Old Deut available to compare), but didn’t sweep away the richness.

There are a number of divine oak-aged beer out there. Only a handful make it to the prairies. Glenda may not reach world elite status, but it is easily one of the superior oak-aged beer available in our parts. The Ola Dubh series remains my favourite, but this just might pull in behind that, leaving Innis & Gunn in the dust and offering more balanced complexity than Hitachino XH and more impressive smoothness than some of the Mikeller oaked beer (many of which are lovely).

The bad news is that this is the last of the Glen(da) Sherbrooke series. However the good news is that Alley Kat has committed to producing a series of oak-aged beer themselves. Not sure of its name nor how many a year, but I will be sure to tell you once I know.

Now I just need to get home in time to buy a couple more bottles before it is gone. I am certain that a couple years of aging will shape this beer even more.