Delaware’s Dogfish Head Brewery is best known for lighter, brighter ales, most notably their 60 Minute and insanely hoppy 120 Minute India Pale Ale. There are, however, darker beers in their expansive portfolio. Their World Wide Stout, made with what the brewery describes as “a ridiculous amount of barley,” debuted forever ago, back in 1999 and has remained a limited release favorite. In 2019, after 20 years, they decided to finally get into the bourbon barrel-aging game and began aging World Wide for an unspecified amount of time in wet Heaven Hill bourbon barrels. We visited the tasting room at the brewery in Milton recently to check this one out.

The nose on this beer is incredible. There’s plenty of vanilla bean and sugary toffee, but the really pronounced note here is fudge, creamy milk chocolate, pecan-filled fudge. Seriously, it smells like I just walked into a Kilwins. The palate shows plenty of that creamy chocolate, too, but there’s a brightness from the barrel aging that adds butterscotch candies and some raisiny dark fruits that lend it a slightly sour, licorice-tinged edge. It’s not too heavy on the palate and thick but not overly syrupy. The long finish shows a bit of dark chocolate and bitter espresso bean. For a brewery renowned for its IPAs, this is an equally impressive barrel-aged dark beer.

15-18% abv.

A- / $15 (per 12 oz. bottle) / dogfish.com

Dogfish Head Bourbon Barel-Aged World Wide Stout

$15

9

Rating

9.0/10