My latest article for The Bulletin, out this week, features an exotic wood-aged imperial pastry stout from 10 Barrel Brewing, Soul Candy. It’s a limited-release specialty from the company’s Tiny Haus innovation brewery, and the focus is on the wood—Amburana wood, from Brazil.

The latest is Soul Candy, an imperial pastry stout conditioned on Brazilian Amburana wood, and infused with flavors of gingerbread and holiday baking spices. But there’s a twist; no actual spices were added to achieve these seasonal flavors.

“The vanilla, cinnamon, rustic cocoa and warm spices are achieved entirely by aging on the Amburana wood,” said [R&D Brewmaster Tonya] Cornett via email.

Compared to oak, Amburana is an exotic, intensely spicy wood that offers the flavors and aromatics of baked goods. Native to South America, Amburana is primarily used for lumber, though barrels are used to age cachaça, a rum-like spirit distilled from sugarcane. And Brazilian craft brewers have been working with it for a number of years.

At 10 Barrel, Soul Candy is the second beer Cornett crafted and conditioned with Amburana. “I have been trying to get my hands on a wooden cask for the past four years,” said Cornett. “Finally, I was able to locate a company that sold it as wood spirals.” The first beer was Small Moments, a barrel-aged English strong ale released this summer. She’s happy with the character Amburana contributes, noting, “the results have been incredible.”

Amburana wood is fascinating and I’m definitely going to keep an eye out for more beers conditioned on it.