Avery Hog Heaven

Brewed by Avery Brewing Company
Style: Barley Wine
Boulder, Colorado USA

Dark amber with a thick beige head. It left a thich ring of lace around my glass. Smell is spicey and floral. I also detect pine and hopps. Very sweet and earthy.A sweet creamie taste in the beginning turns into a bitter hops with some citrus acidity. It also has a great malt taste to it.Very smooth and well balanced. The alcohol is not powerful for being 9.2% ABV. Carbonation is really not noticable.

22 ounce bomber - $5.99 at Bullock’s in Marietta, Georgia. Appearance: Pours a slightly hazed, deep amber body with a frothy, off-white head. Smell: Sweetish hoppy aroma smelling of juicy grapefruit and orange wedges stirred up with some sugar and caramel sauce. Taste: Sweet, sugary caramel malts shift towards fruity flavors of citrus a touch of pine simply bursting with hop bitterness. Splash of fresh-brewed tea. Pinch of white pepper. There’s a bit of alcohol heat in the bittersweet, fruity finish. Mouthfeel: Medium-full body. Medium carbonation. Fairly smooth mouthfeel. Drinkability: It’s one of those self-proclaimed American barleywines that finds more akin with Double IPA’s. Worth a try.

red orange. aroma is very hoppy with some malts, more like an iipa. taste is bitter as the aroma indicates. somewhat unbalanced toward the hops.

Wow. What a pleasant surprise. This is more like a sweet and heavy imperial IPA than what I generally expect from a barley wine. Pours light amber/orange. Light carbonation. A little bit sweet, a little bit thick and heavy with fruity hops.

22 oz bottle. Another beer on the quest to rate beers I’ve had. Really like this barley wine, one of my fav’s. Pours a dark golden/amber color with a small white-to-off-white head. Immediately from the pour, you can smell the delicious caramel/candy malt in it; upon closer inspection, you notice some citrus and a fairly strong hop presence. Tastes of caramel malt, very strongly (perhaps too powerful) with a slight citrus tinge and some hops to it. As I said, the malt makes it a little difficult to go down, but overall it is very good, with a different twist on the barley wine.

On tap at Brouwer’s Hard Liver 09. Pours a light orange with a smallish head. Wow, does this ever have hops on the nose! A bit of oak (though I don’t think it’s aged), and hoppy as hell with just a bit of light, sweet malts to counter. This is more like an IIPA than a Barley Wine - very, very tasty. I really enjoyed it.

Bomber poured into a snifter. Lovely deep red-orange (copper) hue and minimal head. Might be a bit too cold. Citrus hops and caramel on the nose. Full bodied. Doughy, caramel, bitter finish. Big and beautiful.

Fresh 22oz bottle. Pours clear amber with a thin off-white head. Malty aroma, but lots of hop too. Tastes like a DIPA that sat around too long. Flavor pretty much the same. I love hops, but I feel like they should either be overly pronounced or practically non-existent in a b-wine. This is a little too in the middle.