Bos Vintage Ale

Formerly brewed at Bos Brewery and Bistro
Style: Barley Wine
Pontiac, Michigan USA

2002 bottle. Poured a deep caramelly-chocolate with no head.. but fine legs! The aroma picked up deep cognac and tobacco notes with chalky, very deep sugars (rich chocolate, caramel, and darker fruits the primary players).. HUGE! Flavor found deep, liquory darker fruits with a rather heavy level of oxidation.. toasty caramel with other dark sugars on the boozy finish. Decently-balanced and masked the alcohol expertly well.. but some sharper boozy elements and oxidation detracted slightly. Large and in-charge! – 2004 vintage; more residual dark fruity sweetness to mask the alcohol, but I enjoyed the balance and character of the ’02 a bit more.

2002 vintage. Ok, well, what can I say? I’m going far against the grain on this one, but I thoroughly enjoyed this beer. Thanks KP. The beer pours to a hazy chestnut body with no head. But damn, it’s got legs from all the boozey sugars. The aroma is tobacco, maduro cigars, no fusel alcohols, caramel, and tons of barley. The flavor is malty, tobacco, rich herbal quality, aged malt. Very complex. The palate is not fusel at all. Rich and malty, sweet and sugary. What’s not to like in this one?

02- Thanks to the Captain. The look of a dark liquor more than a beer. Aroma is hugely sweet, almost overpowering, caramel and other such sugar notes. Tastes like cough syrup. So hot, almost unbearable.

From 12 oz Bottles, 2002-2004 Vintages. Enjoyed (wait, that’s not the correct word) the three vintages of this beer I had the pleasure (again, not the word I’m looking for) to taste side-by-side in a vertical tasting. Deep tannic brown colored pour, with ruddy hues, and a thin ring of beige-ish head. One whiff, and I’m laughing. Yep, that’s what I would expect my beer to smell like if I set out to brew a beer that would weigh in at a whopping 19% ABV. Well caramelized maltiness, oozing with sugars, flavored with a shot of brandy and cherry sudafed. Lots and lots of estery fruits mix with some sticky raw sugar. Full bodied, lightly carbonated, syrupy mouthfeel. Awful. Excessive fusel alcohols assault the palate immediately, burning the tongue. A diabetic’s worst nightware. Amongst the sticky caramelized mess, some red fruit characters try to shine through, but the unrefined alcohol heat and overpowering sweetness prevent this side from being enjoyable. After the first vintage, it took dogged determination and perhaps a bit of liquid courage to face the other two vintages, although I must say I considered the ’04 to be the least evil of the three. This might sound funny, but I mean it anyway; thanks for sharing, Tom!

What can I say about this beer? Three vintages (02, 03, 04) shared among the jolly folk at the 12 Hour Pizza Port Belgian Beer Fest. Something syrup to counteract all those flowery dry beers we’d been drinking. What I remember of this beer is a volatility and heat, unparalled. We worked from old to young and things seemed to progress towards the heat. Aroma was a bubblegum and sugar syrup blazing alcohols, with faint edges of tequila, pine sap and fermenting oranges. It scorched the nostrils like only a 19.5% beer can. It made you stand up and go, "Holy shit, that’s freakin’ hot!" In the glass, a ruby-tinted amber pour, with glassine edges and nearly calm. In the mouth, an immeadiate intimidation of though rubbing alcohol has entered the mouth accidentally. After the initial shock, a calming movement of piney malt syrup, old dates, pectin candies, and some Cointreau. A lot of esters and really old, tired yeast cloud the middle. Out the back, a real tar-paper piney sensation and possible some hops. I really didn’t get a sense that oxidation worried these beers, only the massive amounts of yeast, esters and residual sugars that make this beer what it is. As we moved to newer vintages, the alcohols only got warmer and more singing and the turpentine nature of this brew became more apparent. Unfortunately it was a little wild to drink more than a few drams of each vintage.

from the bottle 2003 vintage, poured a mahogany with no head. aroma, honey, brown sugar, alcohol, berries, fruity with a hint of vanilla, molasses. flavor was looking for some of the aroma but the first thing I got was ashes like from a ash tray than a musty sourness, mediciney , got some honey and molasses , and port wine. I don’t know if this didn’t age well or not. I have this for bottle for about 2 1/2 years. maybe I should have had it earlier. for a big barley wine this did not hold up IMO

2004: I don’t know whose idea of a joke this beer is, but it isn’t very funny...pour is clear brown with no head...alcohol is just fuming out of the glass...perfumey....taste is chewy and sweet and just hot with alcohol...blech...

2004 draught at Hop Devil on 1/13/07
Large eggshell-to-light-beige colored head is mostly well-retained, leaving sticky patches of lacing and film behind as it recedes. Very hazy is the body, and a deep golden-amber color it has.
Huge esters pervade the nose, along with a big, fat wallop of caramel and rich honey-dough. Fruitiness emerges on the end; light raspberries and cherries soaked in sweet vanilla cream. Bananas and plenty of bubble gum remain sweet and lasting as well, on the finish. The alcohol, not that I believe it’s as high as stated, is well-masked under all of the residual sugar. Quite a high strength of aroma, mostly due to the heavy sweetness and fruity/bubblegummy esters.
One sip has me cringing in disgust with thoughts of giving this a .5 crossing my mind. It’s like a glass full of sugar. Heavy, wet, intensely sweet (intense caramel) malts give way to less firm adjunct sugars (not that the dextrines ever lessen) and fiery alcohol warmth. Sweet fruits of all sorts add complexity, you might say, but with this big of an ale, the yeast is invariably going to kick out a ton of esters. Raspberries, peaches, plums, strawberries, bananas, vanilla, bubblegum....It hardly seems to matter what’s here, as it’s so obnoxiously cloying and brash. Easily the most cloying/heavy beer I’ve ever had. A sluggishly thick body is somewhat lightened by a fair amount of carbonation, but again, it hardly makes much difference. Couldn’t drink more than one sip. I guess I’ll let the 2003 bottle that I have age for another 25 or so years.

Oh and don’t get me wrong, I’ve got nothing against big sippers, this beer is just plain gross. Check out my rating of Kuhnhenn Extraneous ale if you want to see my thoughts on a beer of this type done correctly.