Clipper City Heavy Seas Below Decks

Brewed by Clipper City Brewing Co.
Style: Barley Wine
Baltimore, Maryland USA

Pours dark hazy with a light tan head. Aroma of apple, wood, alcohol, toffee, and phenols. Taste is similar, hot alcohol, sweet caramel and phenolic notes. Mouthfeel is full to heavy bodied with moderate carbonation. Not too impressed.

2006 bottle. Clear red/copper with a small head. Sparse aroma, toffee and brown sugar. Taste is very sweet and moderately hot. I guess it would improve with age, but who’s going to bother?

From 2006 bottle. Good vapory aroma. Mild brown sugar and biscuit, light bitterness. Mostly sweet, though, with a decent maltiness with hints of acetone. A bit hot yet. Dark amber brown with orange undertones, clear in body, with thin off-white lacing head atop. Medium heavy body with medium-heavy carbonation. Kind of hot, this one, with some alcohol burn or warming. Starts with a good amount of sweetness. Malty with a mild soy tang. Estery alcohol in taste, with a mild to medium bittereness in the finish. This one is not overly complex, but it’s not bad. Bit of harsh fruity bitterness in the end, leaving you with bitterness atop some cloying sweetness below. Meh.

12oz bottle from TBC2 (Thanks). Pretty bland barleywine, very light in the body and just not much here other than the 11% which comes through quite a bit.

Brown Color with Orange Hue and White Head. Pretty Light Bodied Overall. Sweet Malt, Alot of Hop Flavor to it. Upon Visual and Tasting Inspection, It Doesn’t Jive with What Most People Would Consider a Barleywine, but It’s Still a Decent Ale...Plenty of Heat but Lacking in Body.

Not that great of a barley wine, very lackluster, ruby red in color, strong tan head at first but it quickly subsided to only a small ring around the edge of the beer, very little lacing around the glass as well, sweet nose full of sugar, malt & bread, medium in body, very light in flavors, big on alcohol taste though, rather fizzy body, the finish wasn’t all that bad though, very sweet & malty with a strong alcoholic punch, but light in everything else, this may go really well with a strong cigar, I may have to try that with one of the other bottles, very simple beer, too simple in fact, not a whole lot going on in the glass, a real disappointment

bottle-thanks to vyvvy for the sample. poors copper hue with some slight sediment with a small fuzzy off-white head. nose is dark fruit, sugars, and light oxidized malt. flavors are pretty simple-sweet malts with lots of oxidized grains. really not complex whatsoever. 11%? i dont get it. its pretty well integrated and thats about it for this beer. finish is long and sweet with lingering oxidization. a rudimentary barleywine/

Had on tap at Brews in Grandview. Poured a dark ruby. This one was a bit dry for me. Tasted some fruit, not a lot, mostly cherries and caramel and figs...I actually tried this side by side with the Weyerbacher Blithering idiot, and it was clear that this one was pale in comparison...A drinkable barley wine, but there are better ones for sure!