AleSmith Old Numbskull

	Percentile
	100
	overall

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

bottled
common

on tap
available

Broad Distribution
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Ratings	Average	Score	ABV	Style Pctl	Serve in
762	4.04/5.0	4.03/5.0	10%	98	Snifter

Commercial Description:
Bottle conditioned.
Old Numbskull is AleSmith’s first barley wine offering. You may find the name "Old Numbskull" curious. Barley wine has its origins in England and tradition is to begin the name with "Old": Old Nick, Old Sampson, Old Jock, etc. Tongue-in-cheek is often the spirit in naming a barley wine. After drinking a glass or two, you may agree that Old Numbskull feels like a fitting description. It also reminds us of the Three Stooges, one of the greatest comedy teams of all time, so it's meant to bring a smile even before the first taste. Exotic fruit aromas, along with clean ethanol, caramel, honey and toasty notes are present in the nose. At five months of age, the Numbskull flavor begins malty and the hops become more evident from the middle to the finish and linger nicely in the aftertaste. The aroma notes also show themselves in the flavor.

1999 - waxed cap
2000 - dated as such. Pictured at left
2002 - Silver foil with electric blue design and NO filling in the anvil spaces
2003 - Silver foil with electric blue design and blue filling in the anvil spaces
2004 - same as 2003 but with "Alesmith" below the logo in white lettering.

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Cavie (1384), Fort Worth, Texas, USA

4.2	Aroma	Appearance	Flavor	Palate	Overall
4.2	8/10	4/5	9/10	4/5	17/20

Oct 18, 2009

Bottle courtesy of Zinister. Clear reddish orange color. Nice barleywine aroma. Smells of aged raisins. Has a nice flavor and finishes solidly. Well done.

jredmond (1031), New Jersey, USA

4	Aroma	Appearance	Flavor	Palate	Overall
4	8/10	4/5	7/10	3/5	18/20

Oct 11, 2009

Bottle split with Pwn3d at RnH. Pours a dark ice tea body. Aroma is dark fruits, alcohol, and hay. Sweet malt in the flavor with some alcohol bite.

Pwn3d (1063), Manhattan, New York, USA

4.1	Aroma	Appearance	Flavor	Palate	Overall
4.1	8/10	4/5	8/10	4/5	17/20

Oct 10, 2009

Bottled at rattle n hum. Pours dark ice tea color, ultra frothy. Caramel and sweet hay notes. Aroma musky figs and a dates. Candi brown sugar and maple syrup. Lots of delicious malty notes, and cream. 4.15

Petrucci914 (581), Green Bay, Wisconsin, USA

4	Aroma	Appearance	Flavor	Palate	Overall
4	8/10	3/5	8/10	4/5	17/20

Oct 9, 2009

Pours a cloudy amber color with a medium off-white head. Aroma is intense earthy hops, citrus, caramel malts, mild alcohol, and some peat. Taste is much the same. I expected a overly-hopped California BW but it was actually quite balanced between the stereo-typical regional tastes. Top-Knotch.

boamr (136), Pennsylvania, USA

3.8	Aroma	Appearance	Flavor	Palate	Overall
3.8	6/10	4/5	8/10	4/5	16/20

Oct 7, 2009

Pours a nice amber color with a nice head to it. Has a hoppy smell to it. Has a wood taste at first then goes to a caramel sweeter taste.

elihapa (1052), Honolulu, California, USA

4.2	Aroma	Appearance	Flavor	Palate	Overall
4.2	8/10	4/5	8/10	5/5	17/20

Oct 4, 2009

Poured fresh at 2009 GABF Saturday. Color is light amber brown, with a small head. Aroma is very hoppy, like freshly picked perfumy flowers mixed with rich caramel and caramelized sugar. Flavor also starts out with hoppy notes, then moves towards toffee and wood. Gosh, this beer is just so damn hoppy, its hard to believe. And it is so delicious! Certainly an unexpected surprise for me, but the floral and piney notes of Numbskull do go extremely nicely with the woody, caramel malt flavors to form a strong base for this beer. I’d love to try one of these with a year or two of age, I think I might predict a much more mellow offering.

TampaBrew (805), Tampa, Florida, USA

4.2	Aroma	Appearance	Flavor	Palate	Overall
4.2	8/10	4/5	9/10	4/5	17/20

Oct 3, 2009

POured amber. Nose is dark fruits, sweet hops, raisin, ripe fruit, slight roast, sweet caramel, alcohol. Flavor is smooth caramel, Resiny hops, toasty grain, fruity esthers, raisin, big malty slightly bitter finish.

yalnikim (779), Wellington, New Zealand

3.8	Aroma	Appearance	Flavor	Palate	Overall
3.8	7/10	4/5	7/10	4/5	16/20

Sep 27, 2009

25/09/2009. 750ml bottle from Beerstore. Clean as a whistle and drinks very easily for 11%abv... but I feel like this beer was in no mans land - too young to get past its hoppy youth and display the full array of oxidised malt characters that you’d like in an aged barleywine; too old to show the hop vibrancy that I’m sure is in this beer when it first hits the bottle. Could be great but wasn’t, for me, on the day (that makes it sound like each and every new "great hope" of New Zealand cricket).

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