AleSmith Decadence 2008

Brewed by AleSmith Brewing Company
Style: Barley Wine
San Diego, California USA

Review #800! Pours a gorgeous magenta ruby brown with a fat creamy tan head that leaves thick lacing. Aroma is nice and complex with tons of fruitiness. Dried apricots, cherries, prunes, melon, pineapple. Also some toffee and an earthy breadiness. Flavor is stewed prune and raisin with a cough-drop-like cherry note. Looks like I got one of the "sour" bottles. It’s not bad but the tartness and slight vegetal note are hard to ignore. With a little warmth it melds a bit better, bringing out notes of dark bread, candied citrus, and a touch of vanilla. Medium and slick on the palate.

Bottle courtesy of bu11zeye. Cloudy orange red pour. Aged fruit smell. Has some alcohol with heavy scents. Apple and grape are notable. Big tingle upfront. Taste is very large and present. Has heavy fruit and wood, with a nicely masked presence of alcohol. This is very well done.

750 ml bottle. Aroma that stood out was some sweet fruits and also some sourness and barley grains. Red hue to beer with a creamy tan head. Flavor of sticky candy fruits with some sour agent in the mix. Thicker bready body texture. The fruit flavor was all good and just liked it better than most english styled that are more grain heavy than frutiy. Alcohol warming effect on body or maybe that was the 90 degree heat sitting by the pool at 7:30 am. Good beer.

750ml bottle. Murky brown pour, it had a kind of glow to it, a little orange in that glow. The head was a very tight light tan that stuck to the sides and slowly dripped down the sides, the beer had a cascading action after swirling it around, very hypnotizing. Aroma was very deep, a slight sweet spiciness like cinnamon maybe or maybe it was like a real sugary slightly burnt caramel, very nice. The flavor was very nice, slightly toasty, more sweet caramel, the spce wasn’t really there, but it had notes of dark fruit in there, really tasty. Glad this bottle didn’t have the tartness some poeple have been talking about, even though my brother got some tartness from his glass, but he did have it the day before and put a stopper on the bottle before I got my taste, maybe a day after it’s opened does something to it.

750 ml bottle from Plaza Liquors - I bought and opened up this bottle knowing it was probably infected. It came from the same case FlacoAlto got his from. Pours a fairly clear brown color with a large light tan head. Aroma is toasted malt, esters, and light spice. Flavor is... Well it’s lightly sweetened malt, Granny Smith Apples, and a touch of metal. It only got worse as the beer warmed. Is this how a English-style BW is supposed to taste? What a bummer.

A vigorous pour into my 25cl tulip glass produces a voluminous, five-finger thick, amber tinged, full tan colored head. Lots of lacing is left on the sides of my glass as the head slowly subsides. The beer is a dark, concentrated amber / dark red-plum color that shows a clear, bright cranberry color when held up to the light. The aroma is a mix of Christmas spices, candied fruit and dark bread notes. This reminds me a bit of a rum soaked fruit cake; aromas of dark cherries, candied raisins and dried berries are accentuated by spice notes of cinnamon, all-spice, mahleb and some fenugreek. Alcohol vapors provide a warming, spicy note to the end of the aroma and there is also an underlying toasted grain character that reminds me of brown-sugar crusted, darkly browned bread crust. If you breath quite deeply there is a light tartness to the finish that accentuates the fruit aromatics, but this time brings out notes of plum, sweet-tart apples and even some fig notes. The aroma on this is actually quite nice, it really reminds me of the holidays with notes reminiscent of fruit cake, or of a dark, sweet, caramelized spice cake / bread.

Somewhat thick feeling as it first hits my tongue, this beer is not nearly as sweet as I was expecting. There is a substantial browned malt flavor here, but what I notice before this is a tartness that seems to be lactic acid derived. Subsequent sips of this brew have me noticing a bright fruit character, one which is clearly helped along by the tartness; flavors of plum, raisin, fermented prune and moist-dried fig are all noticeable. There is a touch of weird, almost vegetal character and a touch of a metallic note in the finish; these seem to couple somehow with the un-characteristic tartness in something of an off-putting way. The dark malt provides a touch of toasted biscuit character, maybe a hint of roast even. My vigorous pour knocked much of the excess carbonation out of this beer, but it is definitely a bit on the high-side for what I would want in this beer. This beer is also a bit on the light side for a beer of this strength; I have a feeling if it had not been infected it would be quite the lush beer right not; the body is still rich and this is still clearly a sipping beer. Alcohol flavors in the finish add a touch of spicy heat and my belly is definitely feeling a bit of warmth. The tartness gets in the way of a rich, sometimes toffee-like, caramelized character, as well as the savory, nicely browned, toasted malt character. The mix of alcohol, tartness and vegetal / metallic notes in the finish can be a bit jarring; this beer doesn’t quite come together in the end.

Coming back to the nose after a bit the tartness becomes a bit more noticeable and it mixes with the almost hot alcohol. This is definitely a strange beast, after really enjoying the aroma the flavor just doesn’t quite live up to my hopes. Even the nose clearly has some other influence than an English yeast strain, but it sort of works there. The flavor on the other hand is just a bit too cacophonous; the notes don’t quite mesh into a unified whole. I wonder if some age, maybe even substantial age, might turn this into an interesting, funky 17th century Old Ale. I definitely need to figure out if I want another bottle of this, it might get really interesting in a couple years, on the other hand it might just get worse too. In the end this is just interesting enough to be enjoyable. If it wasn’t such a crap-shoot, I would definitely buy a couple of these to sample over the years.

Purchased: Plaza Liquors, Tucson AZ

Really excited to give this one a try...one of my favorite breweries. Rusty penny pour with a crimson hue and a small dense eggshell head that left a bit of lacing. Aroma of honey, caramel, toffee, and tart cherry skins. Flavor has some brown sugar, malt, and odd sourness. Although not as forward, has the same sourness of Brandy Barrel Angel’s Share. Something isn’t right here...will try another bottle to see if it was an anomaly. A bit thin for the style as well.

750 ml bottle poured a clear reddish brown with a small lingering tan head. Aromas of carmel, toffee, light spice, light earthiness and light fruit. Palate was light to medium bodied and smooth with a dry finish. Flavors of carmel, toffee, dark fruit and earthiness with a smooth dry lightly tart finish. Big Disappointment!