Abbey dubbels! Boy do I love ‘em! It’s the rich maltiness and funky yeast interactions that draws me to them of course, and in many ways they’re a lot like my favorite style of all, double bocks, in their deep rich dark nutty malt notes. Of course, they’re not decocted like a good German doppel, and doppels use a cleaner lager yeast, but hey, doppel and dubbel do mean the same thing after all.
How about a barrel aged dubbel? That’s what Crown Valley Brewing of Ste. Genevieve, Missouri offers up in their Crown Valley Barrel Aged Big Bison. Crown Valley beers are sold in Georgia nowadays, and I was happy to see this beer show up on the shelves of my local Total Wine a while back. I archived it for a year or so, if you will, for later drinking, and that later drinking is today.
From the label:
Our famous Big Bison Ale has been in our very own Missouri Moonshine whiskey barrels, straight from our distillery to the brewery. The charred oak characteristic add some vanilla and oak flavors to our already exceptional Belgian style Dubbel.
Crown Valley Barrel Aged Big Bison has an alcohol content of 6.9% by volume with 23 IBUs. I paid $7.99 for a bottle at Total Wine in the fall of 2013 for my 22-ounce bottle.
Crown Valley Barrel Aged Big Bison pours to a beautiful tawny russet color with a thick creamy head of foam and a rich vanilla and toasted oak nose. Taking a sip, the beer has a firm dark maltiness up front followed by notes of vanilla and even more notes of toasted oak. This beer is permeated with woody character, so much so that I’m picking splinters from my tongue. It finishes balanced with a bit of tartness and a leveling hop bitterness. It’s boozy, though not all that strong, it’s the barrel aging that imparts the booziness.
All in all a very pleasant barrel aged beer, though I didn’t really get a lot of the chocolate, toasted nuts and raisin I want in the style. Perhaps the barrel aging drowned them out, as well as any Belgian yeasty character. I did hang onto this for a year and a half after I bought it, but I’ve done that before with dubbels, and in fact have aged some a lot longer. I did enjoy this enough that I’d like to try the non-barrel aged version given the chance.
And remember, try a new beer today, and drink outside the box.
*Pricing data accurate at time of review or latest update. For reference only, based on actual price paid by reviewer.
(B)=Bottled
(D)=Draft