Beermanns Bourbon Barrel Barleywine

Brewed by Beermanns Beerwerks Brewery
Style: Barley Wine
Lincoln, California USA

Milwaukee YeHA! 2006

This was bottle #496 of the 2005 release. Most people liked it but for some reason this one did not do much for me. Even if it was barrel aged it still came across as worse than most regular barleywines. I would be willing to give it a second chance though - perhaps I had just had a bad experience with it.

Aroma / Appearance - Butterscotch, melon and a generally sweet note come out of the sample. It has a hint of that vanilla characteristic you get with a bourbon beer but not an overpowering one. The pour was a good looking copper color with little lacing to speak of.

Flavor / Palate - Malt, caramel and a sweet bite greeted my palate. It was not what I was expecting at all from a barley wine, much less one that has been aged in bourbon barrels. I was glad when the sample was empty. This one did not do much for me at all. In fact, I would have been tempted to skip it if I would have known beforehand it would have been disappointing.

Bottle #496 of vintage 2005. The beer pours to nice brassy body with noticeable chunks and a really creamy white head. The aroma is light on the bourbon with notes of vanilla and pale malts, but its a bit too light. The flavor is vanilla, sweet brown sugar, English hops. The palate is creamy and barrel aged.

definate sedement dark muddy brown color w/ a light white to of white head. Dark fruits, plums and raisens a bunch of carmel and some woods, some bourbon notes. Palate is well coated. Flavor is very sweet lots of malt.. a tiny touch of carmel a touch of dry wood. Decent but nothing special.

Draft at the Bistro’s Barrel-Aged Beer Fest 11/11/06; Nose of dark fruit, caramel, and bourbon; cherry colored with a ring of bubbles; flavor of bourbon (alcohol) and some sweet malt.

Cloudy copper body with a small off-white head. Very sweet beer. Body didn’t feel thin but lacked that tasty malt character taste that I come to expect with the style. Instead I got lots of candy flavours (even some peppermint!?). Very sweet with a surprising bitterness bite at the end. That BeerWerks needs some beer works.

Bottle. 2005 Vintage # 511. A bit of a gusher. Rich amber-mahogony beer with a big off-white head. Vanilla, bourbon, and slight Bretty aroma. Vanilla, sweet malt, bourbon flavor with some oak. Bourbon doesn’t start out overpowering but comes on stronger as you get through more of the liter-sized bottle. Alcohol well hidden, Medium bodied. Richer flavored. Slight earthiness.

Any first impressions?
-A veil of head tops the cascading shades of red.
-Plenty of fruitiness jumps at the nostrils, amongst which tropical specimens shine, clashing with the fatigued barrel character.
-Horseblanket emanations undermine the candied fruitiness and sweet caramel maltiness.
-The mouthfeel is pretty meek for a barley wine, undernourished, or simply victimized by too long of a stay in the barrels.

What if you dig deeper?
-Citrusy hops follow up into blurred resinous hop bitterness.
-I don’t know if the perception of unwanted brettanomyces is playing mind tricks on me, but I am now getting pickles to be in the aroma.
-Straight wood shears a few tastebuds, which, coupled with the rampaging citrusy character, easily recalls Magic Hat’s Chaotic Chemistry.
-This felt like a potent American barley wine whose maltiness was wrongly drained with time...Maybe the swing-top bottle is the culprit?

Bottle #585, vintage 2005.

No pop upon opening, but the beer comes out of this 1-liter bottle with a large off-white foam that covers the mostly clear (minimal haze) light caramel coloured liquid. Well this one fell victim to the brettanomyces that must run wild in Californian Wine County, especially when you play with the barrels, but fortunately, it might not be all for the worst. Joyous pineapple notes complement the obvious, but not alone bourbon that lets some of its basic oak shows through. Mellow coffee, candied pear and strong vanilla notes lead us to realizing that this is actually quite sweet. For a brett infested beer, this apparently has a fair bit of residual sugars left and in other circumstances, I might declare it underattenuated for the sugaryness it has in the nose. In mouth, I’m called wrong, it feels a lot drier. It is quite complex flavoured, tart, earthy still with a fair bit of vanilla. Light-medium bodied, certainly diminished from its barrel sojourn displays very vigorous, strong carbonation. Well, I feel the regular version would have been better, but this one on the other hand may be less forgettable.