Three Floyds Pillar of Beasts

 Three Floyds Pillar of Beasts. 

Barley-wine style ale brewed with salted caramel aged in oak barrels.

14.5 % aBV. 16 IBU. Three Floyds Brewing, Munster, IN. 

This was an unusually expensive one for me. $25 a 4-pack, over $6 a bottle. Was it worth it? Yeah. In fact, I may get another, just to save for special occasions. 

Dark brown coloring, slim, short-lived beige head. 

In the nose: Outsized aromatics, powerful sweetness, caramel and vanilla. Toffee and cocoa, awash in bourbon barrels. Boom, boom, boom, boom, Alcohol starts to scream out. Intense, rich, delicious...now, to taste...

In the mouth: Huge sweetness, major vanilla, incredible caramel. Lush barleywine flavors, covered up in bourbon barrel. So many flavors emerge: vanilla, caramel, rum, brown sugar, dates, dark fruits of all stripes, keeping the sweet train going until the dry comes along. Sweet and rich aplenty. Yum = a dum dum.

Big, bombastic, deliriously delicious. 

Okay, that does it, off to Dreamland...

Somewhere in the distance we hear the pounding of native drums. Was it in our minds? We don't know. What we do know is that we made a salted caramel barley wine, put it in bourbon barrels for 12 months, and added vanilla beans and cocoa nibs. Taste the scrumptiousness.