Santa may have a little tango with a Temptress while in Dallas. The elves at Lakewood Brewing Co. have been busy hand-stamping labels for a limited bottling of their Bourbon Barrel Temptress, an imperial milk stout.
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LBC originally rolled out kegs of the Bourbon Barrel Temptress 2013 (BBT13) a couple weeks back. At a brewery tour this weekend, founder Wim Bens explained that they recently got label approval from the proper state authorities and, if the craft-beer stars align, BBT13 will be tamed and corralled into 20-ounce bottles this week (not an easy task, as per a previous interview, the Temptress is "fickle" about bottling).
If all goes well, BBT13 will be on shelves by Christmas. If not, then "Happy New Year!"
All the usual suspects will receive orders of BBT13, but most will only get one case. So if you haven't already made friends with the guys or gals at one of their retail locations, now might be a good time. Perhaps they'd be kind enough to put one aside for you.
The Temptress was originally released last Fall and is, for the moment, Lakewood's top-selling beer. (That will probably change once it gets a zillion degrees outside again.) Chocolate and caramel malt give this imperial milk stout a curvaceous body, and with a 9.1-percent ABV, she'll keep you warm.
To create this latest version, Bens pumped the original Temptress into bourbon barrels to age. There the beer seeped into the wood capillaries and lured out bourbon. Some of the beer evaporated during the aging process (the angels' share), meaning after the maturing process, the new bourbon-laced Temptress has a higher alcohol content.
