Flying Dog Horn Dog Barley Wine

Brewed by Flying Dog Brewery
Style: Barley Wine
Frederick, Maryland USA

Brownish-red. Nice malty sweet nose with hints of alcohol. Much better than i expected, this barleywine is sweet and malty with chocolate and alcohol being the dominant tastes. Big bodied and warming, with a nise touch of bitterness at the finish, along with the firey dryness.

Dark cloudy reddish brown hue, minimal head formation. Sweet toffee caramel aroma, fruity. Not too heavy on the palate, sweet and malty, chocolate, dark fruits, caramel. Grapefruti citric hoppiness but not excesseively hopped. Overall I find it a little strange, the palate is pretty washy, the malts a little sweet and the hoppy citrus jumping in quickly but never having much force. Just seems to be lacking something, a neither nor barley wine, that by itself wouldn’t be too bad, but just lags a little behind many better examples.

This dark brown ale poured with a decent tan head and a strong raisin aroma. There is a strong licorice flavor - also raisin and brown sugar with a long chalky finish.

poured dark with a little head. Smelled very sweet and malty, almost like candy. The alcohol is very well hidden. This is definitely on my buy again list.

Pours a dark brown with a small off white head. Big fruity nose, lots of dark malts, grapes and apples. Light bready yeast aromas too. The flavor is rich molasses and heavy malty fruity thickness. Very sweet on the palate, just pounds at you relentlessly. The alcohol is apparent pretty much the whole way through. Just a litle over he top sweet. The thick molasses flavors are just too much. Needs more balance to really enjoy this brew. A little disappointed.

12oz, no date. Clear deep ruby brown with some floaties and a short-lived beige head. It’s been a while since I’ve had one of these, and Duane helped me out with this. Smells better than I remembered. Plenty of raisins, toffee, and anise (to a lesser extent) to go around. Alcohol is not even trying to hide, and the spice element I’m picking up might be the alcohol, but I can’t tell. There is also a dry wood characteristic in there. Flavor continues with hints of tobacco. Raisins and scorched caramel dominate, though there is still the snise and dry wood. Light tart cherries emerge as this warms, getting a little more vinous as well. Finish is semi dry with bitterness peaking at a 3 that lingers a bit. Full body with light carbonation. Pleasant surprise--much better than I remember it.

Deep burgundy hue. Astonishingly alcoholic and malty nose providing a suggestion of chocolate, black licorice and pit fruit, but mainy just a huge spark of alcohol. Flavor is heavily rich, but still relatively light in body and texture. Sweet and malt accented with sugared fruit flavors and a mild chocolate hint. The unfortunate combination of low hop flavor and bitterness matching an overly sweet barley wine with poorly hidden alcohol. I’m not sure what this is trying to be.

2002 vintage bottle, tasted 11/16/03. Poured nice layer of pinprick bubbles, like a nitro pull, that dissolved into a thin layer of bubbles posing as a head. Dark reddish-brown body. Big smell of coffee malts, raisin and plum flavors, very chewy, with a subtle hop balance. Still, none of these makes for a great barleywine compared to the others, but then it's a style in which there's a lot of competition to go "bigger," innit?