Elysian Bye-Bye Frost

Brewed by Elysian Brewing Co.
Style: Imperial/Double IPA
Seattle, Washington USA

Draft. Pours a mahogany body with a thin bubbly head. Chewy tawny bread y and doughy notes. Hops, hardly some light floral and pine notes. Ashen plum and some caramel sweetness. Moderate warming with a berry like sweetness. Decent, but a bomb for the style.

On tap at the Holiday Ale Fest 2007. Pours orange with a white head. Very boozy nose, lots of excess alochol throughout. Spicy hops, very crisp and piney with fruity malts to balance. Less excess alochol flavor would have made a very nice beer.

Aroma was very barley wine like. Lots of malt up front, bread, biscuit, dougn, caramel, with a hint of alcohol and some floral and pine hops as well. Pours a murky golden orange with a thin head. Lots of malt up front as well in the flavor. More doughy sweetness, bread, caramel malts. A medium sweetness, with a spicy alcohol note followed by a medium hop bitterness in the finish that is floral, a little peppery. Not overly bitter, like I said it came across as a barleywine IMO. Pretty decent stuff.

18-Jan-08 (Draft: 2008 Great Alaskan Beer and Barley Wine Festival in Anchorage, AK) This "quadruple" pale ale comes across as a light barley wine. Concentrated grainy flavors are fairly sweet and are balanced by the medium bitterness of the hops. Hops are neither citrusy or piney. After a few sips, the beer begins to seem sugary and overly sweet, though the bitterness still helps relieve the mildly cloying nature. The nose is sweet and intensely malty, but with a grainy overlay. When swirled in the glass, the aromas are even sweeter. Full-bodied on the palate, the beer is somewhat syrupy as well. Carbonation is light. Dark-gold to light-amber in color and hazy in appearance. Sizeable off-white head settles to and holds a thin layer and leaves a fair amount of lace. Overall, the beer lacks complexity and is awfully sweet and grainy. It doesn’t fair too well against all the great barley wines at this festival, though on its own, it might be fine.

Tap at the Blind Tiger during NYC Craft Beer Week. Sweet, vegetable, pumpkin pie spice, tomato sauce aroma. Weird. Sweet tomato flavor, with a flat, lifeless body. Eh. Very unimpressive.

On tap at Holiday Ale Festival in Portland, OR--A light hazy golden-orange body with a medium whitish head. Spicy, boozy, piny aroma. Alcohol very prominent in this beer. Color is deceptive. Robust malts and evidence of tannins from barrel aging. Decent beer, but I’d rather have the Bi-Frost instead.

Draft from Toronado Barley Wine Festival. Amber colored, rich hoppy aroma. Some caramel malt backing. Maybe some light spice notes as well. Cool stuff.

Holiday Ale Fest... Orange with a white head. Faint malt and hop aroma, very herbal. Silky and smooth palate with sweet hops and pine, strong malt to balance it out. Oak and bourbon was in there too.