I know, I know. I’m late to the party, but things don’t get down to Galveston quite as quickly as they do to Houston, so this beer has already been receiving it’s critical acclaim from most Texas beer drinkers. After hearing people talk about this beer as the best of the Bishop’s Barrel series, I knew I had to get a hold of it.
The only way to get it on the island was to head to Stuttgarden Tavern on the Strand on a Monday night. Fortunately, that was an easy option for me and I was able to snag one of the two bottles left.
The base beer for this Bishop’s Barrel option is Christmas Ale. However, this brew was aged in Sauvignon Blanc barrels with tart cherries and three strains of brettanomyces. The aging process for this beer was longer than any other Bishop’s Barrel release at 21 months in the barrel. Honestly, the Christmas Ale base was changed dramatically through the aging process as it had a tart cherry flavor that was optimized and intensified by the Brett yeast strains creating a powerfully flavorful beer. In addition to the tart cherry, there is quite a bit of a grape wine taste from the barrel.
At only 8.9% ABV, it was a more tame version of a barrel-aged brew since the base was a beer with a reasonable ABV to start. It made the drinking more pleasurable and allowed for that to not be the only beer of the night. Overall, it was an extremely flavorful offering, but it certainly wasn’t the best of the Bishop’s Barrel series.