I used to load Elk Valley Brewing beers down with qualifiers like “amazing for Oklahoma” and “world class for beers coming out of states near Texas” but now I can confidently shed the regional modifiers. They make awesome beers. I hate bastardized barleywine progeny because you can massage the BALs in most instances to get the flavor profile organically but this is easily the prop13 of the old ale world.
Waves of coconut and vanilla, a dialed in almost too thin body that lets the other elements shine by way of reduction. The barrel presence is scaled back but lends an overseeing nod of lightly tannic caramel that chaperones all these confectionary assholes on this field trip. This exists as the Shasta prairie paradise, Unflinchingly Well done, no Oklahoma asterisks necessary.