On tap at Ambulance Brew House, outstanding bourbon barrel aged English barleywine fortifies soft-toned honey fruited spicing with mild bourbon licks and oaken vanilla phenols. Dried-fruited red cherry, currant raisin and plum tones ascend above toffee-sweetened caramel nuttiness. Perfect dessert treat for experienced quaffers.
Easygoing amber-hazed summertime barleywine (’14) slips caramel sweetness and sugary toffee into sinewy yeast. Candied apple glazes Maraschino cherry, raisin, prune, fig, sugarplum and bruised orange fruiting. Chestnut, almond and pecan smidge affects oaken vanilla subsidy. Dark rum and bourbon undertones provide mild alcohol burn.
Complexities abound for yummy butterscotch-candied elixir (with heady 10.5% ABV turbulence and ethyl alcohol burn). Plying chewy caramel-burnt cookie dough yeast sinew to buttered rum-spiced almond, pecan and toasted almond illusions. Beneath, smoky maple molasses sap picks up sugary vanilla, toffee and black cherry subsidy to contrast remedial dry-hopped pink grapefruit bittering.
Resembling a West Coast India Pale Ale with its resinous piney fruiting and candi-sugared caramel malting, summery maibock-like barleywine will please less aggressive hop heads. Black-peppered hop spicing inundates juicy grapefruit-peeled navel orange, pineapple, mango, nectarine, red apple, pear and peach tones to its cracked wheat spine.
On tap at Shepherd & Knucklehead, fruitful barleywine seems closer to a heavily roasted Black India Pale Ale. Sharp hop-charred black patent malts leave pungent impression upon grapefruit-peeled pineapple bittering, juicy orange tang and sweet cherry-blackberry-nectarine-melon-banana conflux. Recalling a chocolate-fruited fondue, its sugary marzipan pasting adds syrupy thickness at the alcohol-burnt citric finish.
Persuasive cinnamon-spiced mocha-smoked barleywine allows brown and dark chocolate plus roasted coffee beaning to deepen muskily sharp hop char. Blackstrap molasses bittering fortifies mocha center and black cherry bruise sweetens the midst.
‘Potent’ Copenhagen gypsy brew (crafted in Belgium) could be mistaken for a fine IPA due to its luscious piney-hopped fruiting and crisply clean-watered briskness. Tropical mango-melon-canteloupe-kiwi sweetness, juicy apple-peach-cherry tang and candied pineapple-grapefruit sugaring contrast spruce-tipped orange rind bittering. Pine nut, almond, fennel and cannibis undertones flutter beneath rich honeyed molasses spine.
“Ominous” full-bodied barleywine layers creamy dark-roasted mocha richness into resinous piney-hopped dried fruiting. Caramelized brown chocolate malts allow cocoa, molasses, toffee and vanilla undertones to graze fruit-caked fig, raisin and black cherry illusions as well as Madagascar bourbon vanilla nuances.
Subtle rust-hued English-styled barleywine brewed with chestnut honey and orange zest (and packaged in fancy carafe glassware) will please fans of Innis & Gunn’s mellow Scotch-barreled eccentricities. Delicate rauchbier-like kiln-smoked peat malts serenade cedar-chipped pecan, almond and rum raisin illusions. Dry tobacco-leafed crisping affects ancillary almondine, armagnac, almond biscotti and marzipan pleasantries. Advertised orange zest adjunct seems nominal. Soft-toned whiskeyed caramel finish melts on tongue.
Judicious chocolate-covered raisin sweetness enriches lusty stewed prune, sugared fig and bruised cherry adjuncts. Maple-sugared molasses, caramel, toffee, coconut and vanilla illusions contrast aggressive hop spicing. Sweeping bourbon boozing infiltrates Belgian chocolate-spiced finish.
