The Bruery is an amazing upstart little brewery, founded just a few years ago in 2008. The name is a portmanteau of "brewery" and the family name Rue, who founded The Bruery. In its short existence, The Bruery has made an extremely strong name for itself in the beer geek community. They are virtually unknown outside of Orange Co. and the beer geeks worldwide who love them. They make no four or six packs, only large format 750ml bottles (same size as wine bottles). They make a lot of Belgian-esque beers, though often with a twist. Perhaps an unusual ingredient or a strange brewing technique. They do make some non-Belgian beers, however, and a great deal of their cache among the beer geek crowd derives from their Black Tuesday stout, a massive imperial stout that is aged in bourbon barrels for over a year and then bottled around 19% abv, though exact strength varies from year to year. This is a once a year release available only at the brewery and it inspires a great deal of excitement, much like Three Floyd's release of Dark Lord. They are also in the process of releasing a once-a-year Christmas beer. Each year they make a different beer and name each one after one of the twelve days of Christmas. Each one is designed to be aged so that you can collect them all and enjoy them together when Twelve Drummers Drumming finally gets released. This winter, we'll be expecting Five Golden Rings, so we're still a ways off from completing the series. I've had most of The Bruery's regular lineup and have been impressed with all of it so I'm excited by the opportunity to review a beer that I hadn't previously even seen around here. I picked this bottle up from the good people at Ludlow Wines in Cincinnati near the University of Cincinnati campus. Big thanks to Mike for always being friendly, helpful, and eager to strike up a conversation about good beer.
Weighing in at a hearty 11.5% abv, White Oak is kind of in a league of its own. You might call it a Barleywine, even though it's technically 50% wheatwine aged in bourbon barrels and 50% Belgian Strong Golden Ale. Barleywine is a rich, decadent style that originates in England and refers to the very strongest member of the broad pale ale family. Barleywines are kind of like amber ales ratcheted into overdrive. I love barleywines. They make great nightcaps and pair well with lots of cheeses, bread, and desserts. They are called barleywines because they are made with barley (thus they are beer, not wine) but are often brewed to wine or near-wine strength. They tend to start out around 8% abv but quite routinely range into double digits. Making the wheatwine variant of the style is simple enough: you just use a portion of wheat instead of straight barley in the malt bill. Wheat tends to make the body a little leaner and crisper, with a slightly fluffy mouthfeel. Bourbon barrel aging will impart flavors of oak, vanilla, coconut, and maybe even some orange. The beer is named White Oak because it is this species of oak tree that provides the staves used to make most bourbon barrels. So this beer would be unique enough if that were the whole thing, but it's only half the picture. The other half of the beer is The Bruery's Mischief, a hoppy Belgian Strong Golden Ale. I'll be very curious to see how the sweet, rich flavors of caramel, molasses, oak, vanilla, and coconut that I would expect in a barrel aged wheatwine blend with the spicy, fruity flavors of Mischief, a beer I'm familiar with (which is excellent on its own and worthy of you buying a bottle). Let's open this bad boy and find out.
The bottle is a pretty 750ml magnum shape, like a champagne bottle. The label is simple but its shape is unique and consistent across all The Bruery's beers which makes their lineup easy to spot on a shelf. This is a very good thing, establishing a brand like that. The beer itself is very unique unto itself. The color is almost exactly in the middle of the two styles brought together in this bottle. A wheatwine would usually be a copper to dark amber or even reddish brown beer while a Belgian Strong Golden Ale will be a pale gold or even as light as straw. This beer straddles the line; I'll call it dull gold or bronze to light copper. Clarity is decent, some haze present. The beer pours like a Belgian Strong Golden Ale with a massive ivory head that fills the glass like mousse. After a couple minutes, the head has dissipated into a quarter inch with excellent lacing. Appearance: 14/15
The nose on this beer is refreshingly different. A true blend of both styles, I can smell it all. Vanilla, coconut, and fruity esters greet me first, followed closely by oaky notes. Caramel, dark fruits, and spices dance around merrily. The oak also gives off a sort of earthy appeal. More spices there, not peppery, more like cloves. The more I smell, the more I notice the caramel kind of enveloping the whole thing. And I love caramel. Nose: 25/25
First swallow and I get bourbon! Whereas the nose carried all the typical indicators of bourbon, oak, vanilla, coconut, the palate removes all doubts of its bourbon heritage and throws in a smack of bourbon booziness right at the front of the palate. Its almost like a shot of bourbon dropped in a strong ale. I like it, but I love bourbon and like boozy alcohol flavors in moderation so this might not be for everyone. Some dark fruits are there too and great flavors of banana and bubblegum remind me of the Belgian roots that run deep in this beer. It really is a marvelous balancing act they've achieved here. The usual woody notes are present too but I like that the Belgian character expresses itself behind the bourbon flavors. This rescues the beer and makes it far more palatable than most beers with a bourbon punch like this. Palate: 46/50
The mouthfeel is pretty good, and the family rue succeeded in their mission here: crafting a robust yet crisp wheat ale. What I wonder is if they should've abandoned the whole "crisp" thing and given the body a little more oomph to stand up to the bourbon flavors. Rather than a wheatwine, I think a barrel aged barleywine would've been more appropriate and would've achieved better balance. I will give them credit, though, for crafting an 11.5% abv monster that actually drinks much lighter. The Belgian influence tempers the body and leaves it in the medium-full category, rather than overtly full which could've made the beer too sweet. I'll trust that they ran through a couple incarnations of the recipe before settling here. They don't strike me as the type to send beer out that they don't trust, so I'll keep all my hypothetical questions and nitpicking criticisms to myself. Mouthfeel: 8/10
OVERALL: 93/100
So this was a good beer. I'm glad to have tried it and I'm very appreciative of The Bruery trying something that no one else is making right now. What's more is they actually made a good beer out of what could've been a train wreck. That being said, I won't be rushing out to buy more bottles at $14 a piece. There are precious few beers out there that I will repeatedly buy at that price (here's looking at you, Alesmith Speedway Stout) because there are just too many new and different beers that I want to try for me to be spending my sadly limited funds on repeat buys of boutique beers. But you should totally try this beer, unlike any beer I remember having. Cheers!
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