Great Divide Brewing Co. Espresso Oak-Aged Yeti
In much the same way that I’ve been on a tear with African coffees of late, when shopping for beer I’ve been seeking out oak-aged imperial stouts. This had been simmering ever since the Extreme Beer Fest in February, and during the past month or so has blossomed into a real quest. I’ve been picking up most any barrel-aged imperial stout that I’ve come across.
It was inevitable that Great Divide’s Oak-Aged Yeti would eventually become part of this run of tastings. Strictly speaking, it’s not a barrel aged beer (bourbon or otherwise), but is instead aged on French oak chips. French oak chips will impart some of the same flavor elements as a bourbon barrel, most notably some oaky vanilla and tannins, without the additional flavors of whiskey, caramel, and spiciness from the bourbon. So I was in store for a very different beast than the other wood-aged beers I’ve tried thus far.
I really like Great Divide’s approach to this beer. The Yeti Imperial Stout is a great base beer that they then age on French oak chips and release as Oak-Aged Yeti. A third variant is this beer, the Espresso Oak-Aged Yeti, to which they add fresh brewed espresso. They’ve also aged a small amount of Yeti in Stranahan’s whiskey barrels for 20 months and released this as Barrel-Aged Yeti. And lastly, they just announced the release of Chocolate Oak-Aged Yeti, a version of the Oak-Aged Yeti that uses cocoa nibs and cayenne in the brew.
It would be a fantastic tasting to work your way through samples of all five versions of Yeti, if only you could get your hands on the ultra-rare Barrel-Aged Yeti (less than 500 bottles were released). Unfortunately, with Great Divide located in Denver, CO, chances of that are pretty slim here.
The Espresso Oak-Aged Yeti is a seasonal offering from Great Divide, and it hit store shelves a couple of months ago. It rolls in at 9.5% and comes only in 22-ounce bottles.
The beer pours viscous and black with ruby hints at the edges. After a mildly vigorous pour a thick chocolate-colored head forms that slowly drops, leaving generous lacing on the glass. The nose has notes of carob, oak, coffee, roasted grains and wood resin. These flavors are pretty well integrated, with no single flavor being dominant. The palate has a moderate amount of prickly carbonation to offset the warm, velvety mouthfeel. Flavors of oak are notable, with some drying tannins added in to boot. Alongside this are notes of roasted grains, subdued coffee, bittersweet chocolate, and a hint of vanilla. As with the nose, no single flavor particularly stands out. The finish opens up with milk chocolate that gives way to a bitter espresso bite.
I was surprised by how dry and mellow the beer was. Expected flavors of coffee, chocolate, espresso, and a hint of vanilla all appeared, but were really balanced against one another and the oak finishing to create a beer that has no one dominant personality. If anything, I think this may have been a slight drawback, simply because I found the oak-aging to have dried the beer out quite bit, with the tannins being surprisingly strong. Yes, the flavors were in balance, but I wonder if this actually kept the beer in check, preventing it from expressing a pronounced personality. I’d like to give this one another chance though, since it showed a lot of promise.
On the whole, I thought the beer was ok. I’d still like to do the full tasting of Yeti expressions, and if I ever get my hands on a bottle of the bourbon barrel-aged version I think I’ll just have to organize that. It may mean sitting on the beer for a while until each of the seasonal releases have come out, but I would be willing to bet that it’d be worth it.
And I’m definitely hoping that during our road trip this Summer we can swing through Denver and drop in at Great Divide. If nothing else, I think the Yeti t-shirts are great. “I believe”.
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