Big Texan Brewery Whiskey Barrel Stout:
Howdy y’all and welcome to a slightly off the beaten path review today- which means we’re heading away from the Oktoberfest for a minute and we head up to the lovely Texas Panhandle. Now there isn’t much up there save for Amarillo and Route 66 and the world famous (literally!) Big Texan Steak House.  At said steak house you can  get the 72-oz steak meal for free if you finish it in, a side salad, loaded bake potato, dinner roll and shrimp cocktail in 1 hour.  I won’t bore y’all with records or more details but pictures of the contestants is worth the web search alone.  So what does this have to do with beer?  Well the Big Texan started their own in-house brewery and started cranking out about 10 different year round brews with 1 to 2 seasonal brews and all are available for take home in growlers to a tray full of samples.  Today’s beer, their Whisky Barrel Stout is one of their signature beers that is not only good by itself, but can be “soup’d up” with another beer or a shot of whiskey for a very enjoyable experience.  The beer pours a midnight black with very little carbonation or head and a strong nose of roasted malts and a noticeable bourbon backbone.  The beer begins with a nice subtle coffee flavor that moves to a coffee bourbon mix (which by itself is a great drink) with a nice back end taste of chocolates and straight alcohol.  The beer’s aftertaste is very subtle much like a Guinness and is very enjoyable and though it comes in at an impressive 9.2% ABV it’s hardly noticeable.  This beer alone is worth the drive to Amarillo and I’m not even counting the steaks or atmosphere.