After adding bourbon-soaked oak cubes to a batch of Porter and patiently waiting a couple of weeks for it to condition in the keg, it was finally time to see how this beer was coming along.

Because I wanted to do this as an experiment focused on the bourbon and oak part of the equation, as the base of this batch I used MoreBeer's one-gallon partial-mash Porter kit. That made the brew day quick and in theory I was working with a more-or-less "standard" Porter.

For the bourbon barrel part of this experiment I soaked 0.5 oz medium-heavy toast American oak cubes in 2 oz of Knob Creek 12 Year Old Kentucky Straight Bourbon. I went with the Knob Creek because while it's not necessarily my favorite bourbon to drink straight, it's a very good bourbon that isn't very sweet (like, say, Maker's), has fairly prominent oak notes on its own, and also has pleasant (but again, not sweet) caramel and vanilla components. Seemed like that'd be a good mix of stuff to have in a Porter.

In terms of the color, I wish this just a tad darker or maybe "richer" somehow, but it's not bad. Something to think about when I get more serious about dialing things in and come up with an all-grain base for the next batch.

The aroma is heavy on the bourbon and oak, not unpleasantly so but it's probably a bit too heavy to be well balanced. When I was describing this beer to a friend who doesn't live close enough to taste it he said, "Too heavy on the bourbon? I'm not familiar with this phrase." And yeah, it's not like it's bad per se, it's just not quite the balance I was going for.

But again, this was a first attempt to get a baseline so I wasn't going for perfection here and I'm probably being hyper-critical as is my tendency. It has a prominent bourbon and oak smell. Let's go with that more neutral way of putting things.

The flavor is actually pretty decent. Here too the bourbon and oak is more pronounced than the concept I have in my head, and I'm glad I used the bourbon I did because you definitely taste it. The bourbon selection I'll call a win because if I had used Maker's or something sweeter I wouldn't like it nearly as much.

After the initial bourbon and oak hit up front the Porter flavors come through, just not as prominently as I'd like. The Porter component doesn't stand up enough to the bourbon in terms of what I hoping to achieve here.

It's a decent, pretty drinkable beer and I definitely learned a lot with this first attempt. The bourbon choice, and I think the type of oak cubes, are both wins. I like that combination since it's not too sweet and the toast on the oak cubes was exactly what I was looking for.

The Porter backbone needs to be stronger and more roasty to stand up to the bourbon though. The MoreBeer Porter is only 4.8% ABV and while the flavor is good, when I develop this recipe further I'll probably want to shoot for maybe 1% ABV higher and make sure I get the roasty grain notes more in the mix. I'm not going for an Imperial Porter here; I want a pretty easy-drinking Porter but with the additional complexity of bourbon and oak.

First try, Matt; first try. You learned stuff and that was the goal. Relax, don't worry, have a homebrew.