Peerless Barrel Aged Toasted Pilsner by Hometown Brewing Co. is being evaluated as a 33B Specialty Wood-Aged Beer, with a base style of 5D German Pils.

The beer presents as a faintly hazed deep burnished gold with a lot of larger bubbles escaping. The head collapses quite quickly to virtually nothing, unfortunately. Up front on the nose, it is decidedly alcohol-forward, with an aroma not dissimilar to an actual sour mash, somewhat lactic in presentation. Beyond this, you get a nice spicy complexity and vanilla, trending more in the realm of rye whiskey than bourbon, in my opinion. Without being advised that it was a pilsner, I'd struggle to get that particular character from the beer. There's a hint of malt, but more than that it has a curious lime sherbet quality.

On tasting, I get more pilsner character, with a lightly sweet malt backbone and balancing bitterness. Low herbal hop character is suggested, but gives way to some tangy tart notes that could suggest an introduction of lacto to the beer. It takes on more of the barrel character, but the whiskey itself isn't overwhelming. The whiskey lingers through the tart and dry finish as well. There is some distinct warming in the chest that lets you know about the alcohol here. All in all, this presents as an interesting barrel aged beer, I just question continuing to suggest that it has that pilsner quality, as it comes across as something a bit more amorphous with the acidity and shift of balance. I do believe the acid presence may also be what is causing some of the issues with head retention as well. If it weren't for the insistence on it being a pilsner, I believe it would evaluate a bit better!