Lexington Brewing Company's Kentucky Bourbon Barrel Ale

Lexington Brewing Company's Kentucky Bourbon Barrel Ale is the second bourbon flavored beer I've reviewed for this blog, and something tells me the last.

The first one I said made a lousy stout but probably a decent bourbon. This one is just lousy.

It pours an odd, clear orangish amber with a small almost white head that's gone almost before it starts. Light carbonation can't keep the head at a sheet, and barely at a collar.

As the head fizzles away it has a decidedly bourbon smell, so at first it's on type, at least. That fades a bit and is replaced by a sweet, vanilla malt, but still keeps a bit of an acidic, bourbon smell.

I'm not a huge fan of bourbon flavored beers (this one was given to me), but if they're going to be bourbon flavored they should be sharper than this. This one seems to taste like they tried to give it a bourbon flavor after the fact, almost from a syrup, and almost as an afterthought. It feels like a bourbon flavored adjunct lager, is what it is. That would account for the corn-like sweetness.

Maybe they were trying to make a light-bodied bourbon flavored beer in contrast to all of the heavier ones, but it fell kind of flat to me. Now, an American Strong Ale is supposed to be just about any American style with a fairly high alcohol content, and because that's pretty damn broad my opinion is that if it's trying for a certain taste that it should hit the mark or be derided as a flop. This one is a flop. It's a mish-mash (pardon the pun) of adjunct-tasting malt, an odd sweetness, and weak bourbon, with a weak carbonation profile to top off the misery.

I hate writing reviews like this. I prefer to be constructive and respect the work that went into a beer, but this bourbon stuff just isn't right, and this one can't even get to "not right." Do everything you can to avoid this one.