Barley Johns Big Nicks Belgian Ale

Pours a hazy copper/amber color, with not quite a half inch of white foam. Decent lacing. Aroma: Malty with a spicy Belgian yeast character with a bit of sliced green apple. This beer is about the malt and the yeast flavors. In the malt department, I get a bready flavor, with some honey or candi sugar. There’s a ’Belgian ale’ fruitiness in there too, and a mildly spicy finish. Almost full bodied, the delicious taste lasts well into the aftertaste. I don’t discern any hop flavor, but this beer is wonderfully balanced. This very smooth and softly carbonated

Tulip glass at the brewpub. Boy this is a weird one even for BJ: cloudy bright orange with a thick solid lasting snowy head, lovely and typically Belgian...nose is absolutely gigantic, a knockout, an orgy to the nostrils of sweet and bitter oranges, honey, currants, black pepper and vanilla, mostly sweet but zesty and extraordinarily complex...on the tongue, it couldn’t be more different, Orval-sour but without the zest, rather on the heavy side of creamy, with a cutting sour apple/lactic quality throughout that isn’t quite cut by the citrusy dryness..somewhat metallic at the end. Man, if the whole thing were only as good as that aroma, I would have never left...

Slightly hazy orange/amber color, clinging white head. Very fruity banana then flowing in mid palate to the sensation of banana *peel*. Some spicy notes, though mild, and some of them appear in the aroma but don’t carry through in the flavors, including a sense of when a steak hits a hot griddle pan and the fat burns off. A curious form of acidity as it went down the hatch. There is a coating quality to the palate that comes off as a bit of flatness--it is not especially spanking as I sometimes expect here. But this is an excellent beer overall. (on tap at brewpub)

Tap @ brewpub. A hazy dark golden color with a laced white head. Corriander, orange, and banana with a lively flavor. Dry at the finish. Quite a nice beer for a Minnesota brewpub.

Tart citric aroma. Lemons and some considerable yeasty spice--perfumey. Very big flavors hit the tongue. Full-bodied, but not syrupy. Full of yeasty spice notes (unless this has been so elegantly spiced as not to tell with what it has been spiced.) Big, spicy, and tasty.

Consumed between a Winter Ale and a Barrel-Aged Rosie’s, 11-25-04, National Conspicuous Consumption Day... Thick, cloudy amber appearance, slim, creamy white head. Sweetness starts it, in the aroma, sugary and fruity, yeasty, too, but not overly forward. Very pleasant taste, big carbonation, flush and full in the mouth. Light to medium-bodied, loaded with fruity notes throughout, banana/peach esters rising up. Very easy-drinking, but substantial, brew. Loaded with flavor, a truly tasty treat. I recommend it as an aperatif, post any of BJ’s fine entrees.

Big yeasty banana on the nose. Cloudy oragnewith no head. Looks like a cross between a wit and a tripel. Big aromatics of clove and banana. Deep spices that would balance well with spicy hot food

Milky orange/gold w/little or no head. Nose of orange, vanilla, light spice, banana, and a mandrain orange note. Med weight w/sweet bitter finish. Flavors of vanilla, orange, coriander, sweet peach and most notably the alcohol is well concealed. Awesome brew!