Toro, 6" x 50 ring gauge / $6.9922 oz. Bottle/ 12% ABV/ $5.49
This is a follow up to my post about the Stone Old Guardian Belgo (which can be found here). Today I will be pairing the regular release of the Old Guardian barley wine with a San Lotano Habano.
This version uses the regular type of yeast that they use in their beers instead of the Belgian type used in the Belgo. This beer pours a dark cloudy amber color. There isn't much head and it has notes of orange and hopps on the nose. Flavors of hopps, citrus, and malt assault the tongue when you take a drink. The beer is very heavy and coats the tongue. As with most high ABV beers there isn't much carbonation.
The cigar I decided to smoke with this beer is the San Lotano Habano. You can read my full review if this cigar here. I can easily say I really enjoy this cigar as I've smoked a couple boxes of them. I was anticipating a great paring of the two.
Let's get down to it. After taking a couple puffs on the cigar to get it going I took a sip of the beer. The cigar seemed to bring out the hops bitterness of the beer. Doing the opposite seem to bring out the spice and strength of the cigar. As I progressed through the cigar and beer it seemed to me that they sort of competed and didn't exactly go well together. That isn't to say that I didn't enjoy it, it was only that it wasn't the most complimentary pairing.
I can highly recommend both of these separately, but to me at the time it wasn't the best pairing as they seemed to compete. I welcome any comments to any of you who might have tried either one of these.
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