Name: Dankwood
Brewing Company: Founders Brewing Co. (Barrel Aged Series)
Location: Grand Rapids, MI
Style: Red Ale – Imperial/Double (Untappd) / Imperial Red IPA (Founders’ bottle)
ABV: 12.2%
From Founders’ page for the beer:
What do you get when a big, bold imperial red IPA meets an oak bourbon barrel? A palate stunner that’ll send your senses spinning or, as we like to call it, Dankwood. Rich caramel notes emerge from the depths of the IPA, highlighting strong malt character while the bourbon barrel-aging develops the complexity. A dank, sticky and slightly sweet sipper, Dankwood is the perfect alchemy of wood and hops.
I’ve made it pretty clear that Founders is one of my favorite (easily top 5) nationally distributed craft breweries, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that I’m reviewing another beer from them. Last year, Founders kicked off a major brewing program, The Barrel Aged Series and included long-time favorites Kentucky Breakfast Stout and Backwoods Bastard (which I reviewed last year) and newer brews, like Doom (basically, Double Trouble barrel aged) and this one, Dankwood, which is basically ReDANKulous aged in barrels.
Popping open the beer and pouring it into the bottle a wonderful booziness from the bourbon wafts towards me. The beer initially seems a dark red, but as it settles into the glass, the color seems more caramelized. First sip is potent hops but smoothed out by the barrel aging.
There are a lot of powerful flavors swirling in the glass. Hops, bourbon, oak, with an ample malt backbone. Two out of four are standard for a big, bold IPA, with the malt more pronounced in some Red Ales. This is most definitely a beer you want to drink slowly in sips to enjoy the complexity of the hops interacting with the bourbon aging. As it warms, the maltiness is a bit more pronounced. Quite frankly, the beer becomes more of what it claims to be as it settles into the glass. Like many barrel aged beers, wafting in the aroma is nearly as pleasing as the taste itself.
This is the fourth offering I’ve had in the Barrel Aged series. KBS still reigns supreme and Backwoods Bastard is very close to that. As much as I enjoyed Doom, there were familiar elements in that beer from the hops. I don’t drink many Red Ales and have only had a couple of Red IPAs so I wasn’t sure what to expect. I was very pleasantly surprised by how much the barrel aging rounded out the sharp hop profile and enhanced the malt backbone.
Many breweries are aging beers in used liquor barrels (Bourbon, Whisky, Rye, Rum, Wine, etc), regardless of the size of the brewery. Hell, a friend helped his friend brew a barrel aged stout with a home-brew kit. That said, the majority of breweries doing barrel aging are focusing on stouts, but Founders has shown how well barrel ageing can work on hop-forward ales like IPAs. The beer I’m really looking forward to is the barrel-aged Old Curmudgeon, AKA Curmudgeon’s Better Half.
Recommended, link to Untappd 4.0-star rating.
The Tap Takeover 