Blue Star King William Ale

Brewed by Blue Star Brewing Co.
Style: Barley Wine
San Antonio, Texas USA

I'm not usually a barley wine fan, but this one was really good (bad news for real barley wine drinkers?). Golden amber. Smooth! Sugary, alcohol tones like you'd expect, but nicely mellow. Very good.

Draft, goblet. Huge caramel, toffee, and butterscotch malt (H); hints of coffee and toasted nuts. No alcohol in the nose (impressive!). Deep amber-gold body with a tight, creamy, off-white head. Starts off moderately sweet with a nice balancing acidity. Mid palate is a huge explosion of butterscotch. Finishes moderately sweet, lightly acidic with a heavy does of floral hops. Full body, creamy/oily texture, average carbonation. The bottom line is: aged for a year, this beer is a luscious blend of malts and hops tempting all parts of the tongue.

Draft - And certainly worth checking out. Sparkling deep amber, thin creamy white head. Intense and rich nose of musty caramel, florals, candied orange peel, and pine. Flavor is similar with a pine burst that slowly fades into more rich caramel coated orange notes. Full bodied, soft carbonation, dry, bittersweet finish. This one totally made my brief visit here worth it...

Light copper appearance. Sweet and a very light taste...almost like a scotch. Very different, but a good drink.

Draught at Blue Star Brewing Company, San Antonio, Texas.
Nice creamy off-white head on a clear copper body. Very sweet caramel aroma, maybe a little too sweet!? Also sweet caramel flavor with some bitterness behind the sweetness. Some alcohol present. This is like caramel-liqueur. Very different and interesting.

On draught in large goblet. It’s a clear amber color with a nice, medium head. There is not much of an aroma at all, maybe some maltiness. The flavor is of an English Barleywine. Nice amount of bitterness with a good deal of candy-like sweetness, maybe some strawberry flavors, too. The alcohol is apparent & it would be interesting to taste this with some age. As it warms the flavor is a nice caramel. Good beer.

Draft, at the brewpub. Orange amber pour, with almost no head. Aroma is barley and a bit of bright pine hops. Taste is nice, big semi sweet maltiness with a good hop presence to provide a nice, bright, bitter finish. Hides the 12% (stated ABV by bartender) alcohol really well. Bartender Ron mentioned this had been aged 12 months. The age shows nicely in this one. A very nice, solid, Barley Wine.

The beer poured a slightly hazy red brown with a thin head. The nose was dominated by high alcohol with notes of sweet malts and dark fruits. The taste was what I expected from the nose it was deep and sticky with a heady feel of alcohol. The finish was something I couldn’t put my finger on, but it was a flavor I had gotn from there other beers so it might be the yeast or the malts.