Abita Maple Pecan

I feel like Abita is one of those breweries I have a love-hate relationship with. I've never been particularly fond of their flagships (though that might be the curling club's fault, considering we had it on tap constantly for the first year or two), but it seems that their specialty brews can be interesting, at least. So, of course, I bought some and put them in the beer cellar, and nearly a year later thought I should finally get around to making some pancakes.

Abita's Maple Pecan is a bourbon-barrel aged nut brown ale, which if that sounds like a mouthful it's because it is (pun intended?). There's a definite boozy aroma once you crack the bottle (in fact I used the term "boozy" to describe elements of the flavor 3 times in my notes), but it's complemented by subtle maple notes. The beer pours a fairly light brown (lighter than I expected, at least) and had virtually no head (not sure if this is the beer's fault or it being a year old). You can certainly tell it's been barrel-aged but there's a very slight hint of pecan, if at all at first taste.

Prep/Cooking

The batter seemed to cover up all of the overwhelming barrel characteristics the beer had in liquid form. It also helped to bring out the malt and nut flavors I was missing in the beer. Overall, there was a sweetness to it, but not necessarily maple notes. The consistency didn't seem to draw much attention, either. So far the beer and the batter have been underwhelming, but we'll see what that means for the pancakes.

Results

I think throughout the process I was hoping for more maple and it just never delivered. The booziness was completely gone (typical), but so was the maple. In fact, so was the pecan. These pancakes basically tasted nothing like the beer or batter. They did have this delightful wheatiness to them, though. Almost like buckwheat, but more subtle.

The Decision

• Pancakes: Yes. Even though it didn't come out tasting much like the beer, the pancakes were "actually really nice".
• Syrup: No. You'd think with a supposed maple beer, adding syrup would help those flavors, but I didn't notice anything. If anything, it enhanced the pecan notes, but not enough to justify syrup.

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