Alpine Beer Company Great

Formerly brewed at Alpine Beer Company (CA)
Style: Barley Wine
Alpine, California USA

Wow, just like Tony said, this is great! Beautiful dark fruit flavors and a lot of nuttiness, like an Amontillado sherry. Amazing aroma, various types of oakiness, vanilla and caramel, figs and dates. Warm and sweet like maple syrup.

Bottle, courtesy ibrew2or3. Very cloudy amber gold pour, no head or lacing. Nose is very smooth caramel, some roasted oak, slight vanilla and booze. Very good hot caramel flavors, molasses, honey, brown sugar, hot oak and bourbon. Perfect. Extremely good. Taste blows away the aroma. Very smooth and delightful. The ABV is invisible ultimately. Love this one.

Thanks Ibrew2or3 for the share. Pours brown with a nose of spice, vanilla, oak, maple, and bourbon. Flavor is earthy bourbony vanilla, oak, maple, alcohol, spice, sugar, and lingering sweet earthiness. Smooth as silk, very mellow, and ultimately "delicious."

On draft at Pizza Port Strong Ale Festival 2009. Caramel brown pour with white head. Aroma and taste was coconut, bourbon, oak, chocolate. Low to medium carbonation but very smooth. Overall very enjoyable and you can’t tell its 14% alc.

Thanks ibre2or3. Dave, you once again brought out a great barley to the table. Bottle of 2004-05, pours copper with beige head and ice yellow lacing. Aroma full fledged bourbon with good notes of malts and wood. Taste of light caramel and chocolate malty, filled with bourbon, making it an amazing beer. Light caramel with the 14.7% abv remaining very hidden. Nose plus mouthfeel is just out of this world. Words cannot do the beer justice as it was really hard to put this one down.

Bottle: Mahogany ruby color, nice off-white head and light spotty lacing. Moderate carbonation and no sediment on the bottom. Impressive that a beer this strong, plus the barrel aging has maintained the proper carbonation and head retention without any additional yeast. The nose is light and fruity with plum, cherry, fig, carob, light bourbon and some nutty sherry notes. The flavor is a mix of sherry, balsamic vinegar, maple syrup and molasses. Moderate alcohol in the taste but it doesn’t burn too bad. Sweet balances the tart oakiness. The sherry taste compliments the syrupy body. Not overpowering in anyway. Smooth, balanced, all together it’s delicious.

Pours with an amber body topped by a medium thick to thick head with a good amount of lacing. It’s slightly sweet and oaky with a strong whiskey note, a peppery bitterness and a nice underlying hop note. Not bad, will be really good with a little age. Full bodied, warming and dry.

Gold foiled capped 375 ml. green bottle, 14% ABV, I’m not sure of the bottling date, I would imagine that it is probably between 2004 and 2006, sampled in a snifter. L: Cloudy bronze-like caramel with a tight beige head of bubbly, soapy foam that settled into a thin sudsy lacing. Minimal amounts of splotchy lacing ring the glass. S: Big aromas of vanilla, toasted oak, chocolate and aged bourbon. Further whiffs reveal traces of caramel, brandy-like fruitiness and green wood-like spicy hops. F&T: Lusciously smooth full bodied feel in the mouth, thick malty creaminess and alcoholic dry. Plush whiskey barrel flavors, toasted vanilla, oak and smoky mash bourbon. Needed sweetness is added by the chocolate and caramel malts, along with a whiskey soaked dark fruitiness. The hops provide a mildly subtle citric spicy bitterness that helps to dry out the malty finish. Well, this convinced me on my next trip to southern California that I need to make the Alpine Beer Company a compulsory stop.