The Bruery White Oak Review

Name: The Bruery White Oak
Style: Wheatwine
ABV: 12.5%
IBUs: 20

Chalk up one more brewery that I no longer have to travel to Wisconsin to get. That's right, The Bruery made landfall on Minnesota store shelves this week, much to the delight of beer lovers everywhere, with myself amongst those people. A couple times while I was in Duluth, I had some of their beers thanks to neighboring Superior but I never actually got around to reviewing any of them. Then again, with all the reviews I've done, it's sometimes hard to keep track of them all.

Well, there's no point in dwelling over it, let's move on to the beer. Today we've got The Bruery's White Oak, a wheatwine which is aged in bourbon barrels. The last time I reviewed a wheat wine was almost 2 years ago when I reviewed Smuttynose's Wheat Wine. I've heard some pretty good things about this beer, so let's take a look, shall we?

Appearance - Dark orange color with no visible carbonation. The head is thin and white and has a good amount lacing left behind along the sides of the glass.

Aroma - Dark fruit & plum notes with some strong oakiness. I'm also getting some hefty toffee and caramelized maltiness aling with some subtle vanilla notes.

Taste - Dark fruit and strong vanilla notes upfront backed up by some caramel and toffee malts in the middle. In the back I'm getting some more of that maltiness with some more of that vanilla sweetness with a light hint of malted wheat. The aftertaste is some moderate bitter hoppiness and a light plums. There's also a moderate encompassing boozy flavor that does get in the way the more the beer warms up.

Based on the overall flavor profile, I'm reminded more of an English Barleywine than it did a Wheatwine due to the sheer maltiness of it all and lack of wheat flavor. That said,White Oak is decently put together beer but the boozy flavor can be rather off putting at times, plus the asking price is a bit high when you factor in everything else.

The Bruery White Oak - 7.5/10