Friday Beer Reco: Stanley Park Brewing’s Bourbon Barrel Stout Is Only For the Brave

It’s not very often that it takes one or two sips for a beer to basically put me in a sleeper hold that I can’t get out of. Superflux’s excellent Indulgeousness was perhaps the closest that a beer had come to really putting me out for the count, but that took at least a full can.

Until now.

Stanley Park Brewing’s Bourbon Barrel Stout isn’t just heavy. This thing is Snorlax. It’s Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson. It’s commenting, “My mom died two years ago,” when someone makes a ‘Yo Mama’ joke. It woke up this morning (and every morning) and absolutely chose violence.

Can you hang with it? That depends. I think I have a decent tolerance for whiskey-aged beer, but this thing is as authentic as these types of beer get. It’s barrel-aged for over a year and holds a 10.6 alcohol percentage—a number that is about 5 percentage points less than I would have guessed after tasting it.

A crisp glass of this though? If you’re into this kind of thing, it’s fairly blissful. Just be very careful not to overdo it. This is a very special beer—there’s a reason Stanley Park only made 750 cans available to the public. They sold out in short order, but there will be more at the brewpub next week. 

Act quick. And then drink slow.