Thrilla in Vanilla

If you know anything about me, you know how I feel about barbeque. Far and away it is my favorite food. In all honesty I tend to think of it as it's own food group. Grains, Fruits, Veggies, Dairy, Meat, Protien, BBQ. If you have ever visited me in ATL, then I have probably taken you to this little place called [Fox Bros Bar-B-Q], or as I like to call it, 'Heaven.'

So if you were me, and you found a local craft brewer that made a brew aged in whiskey barrels, along with smoked vanilla beans provided by said barbeque joint.... what would you do? You would absolutely buy it without even thinking for half a second about it. And that is exactly what I did with the Red Brick Vanilla Gorilla.


I've talked a little bit about Red Brick way back when I started this blog, but haven't featured them since. Biggest reason why is that I am not the biggest fan of their brews. They've got potential. And recently they started to capitalize on that potential with their 'Brick Mason' series. A little while back I had the [Red Brick Double IPA] and was pretty impressed. The Vanilla Gorilla is the second of three in this series. Just like the DIPA, this one delivers.

Here's what they say about their brew: "A smoked porter aged in Tennessee Whiskey Barrels with Smoked Vanilla Beans, courtesy of Fox Bros. BBQ in Atlanta. This porter was brewed with Cherry Wood Smoked malt." What's not to love about that? It is an intense beer, with a lot going on, but it is quite good. One of those brews that you can only really have one of, but you won't want more than that. Practically a meal on it's own.

I kind of messed up with this one because I didn't actually pour it into a glass. So I don't officially know what it looks like. The smell was great as this is where you get most of the vanilla. But as far as the color, I'll defer to what Red Brick says -- "Color: Nearly Black"


Red Brick Brewing
Vanilla Gorilla
Porter
7.8% abv