Glacier Big Woody Barleywine

Brewed by Glacier BrewHouse
Style: Barley Wine
Anchorage, Alaska USA

On tap @ Glacier Brewhouse. Had an 06, 07, and 2010 during the 12 days of Barley Wine but will rate the 07 my favorite of the night aged in virgin French oak barrels for 1 year. Pours deep mahogany with a small off white head. Aroma of caramel, raisins, oak and alcohol. Flavor is sweet caramel malt with light bitterness and a very light alcohol taste. Medium to full body with mild carbonation and a syrupy mouth feel. This is a nice wood aged Barley Wine, the oak drys it out a bit which is nice compared to the fresh stainless steel aged batch.

FOBAB 09. Pours red/brown with almost no head. Aroma of Jim Beam, woody, caramel malt. Decent flavor, but nothing special compared to the rest of the beers I had this day. Boozy in the flavor. It was cool to see them bring beer from Alaska for this occasion though.

On tap at Bistro Barrel Aged Fest. Pours dark amber with a thin beige head and a sweet malt aroma. The flavor is sweet malt with a lot of bourbon in it, providing some heat and a little sourness at the finish.

FOBAB 09. Pours ruby with a small off-white head. Aroma is strongly of Jim Beam, wood, sugar, malt, and caramel. Taste starts off with a huge Jim Beam character that never subsides and dominates the entire beer. There are some characters of wood and caramel, but they are extremely muted. There is also an undelying earthiness that doesn’t quite work. Has a base of dry malt that is dominated by the bourbon flavor. Lingering taste of more Jim Beam. The alcohol is well masked behind the flavor, but it does have a nice warming effect. If you don’t like Jim Beam, you won’t like this beer. It’s all bourbon, with very little of the actual beer still there. Not impressed, at all.

draft @ hard liver ’09 - with all the buildup, this sucker fell flat on its face IMO; clear, amber, slight white head; seemed like a wheat wine, BW mix and i really don’t dig wheat wines; lemony hops, woody, light caramel; thin texture, mild flavor profile; eh; as Mike LaFontaine would say, "Wha’ Happen?"

On tap at Hard Liver Barleywine Festival 09, Brouwer’s Cafe. Crystal clear brightly rubied medium amber with very little head and no lace. Creamy medium body. Vinous, boozy nose. Tons of vanilla-y oak on the mid-palate, without much company, other than some notes of caramel. Mild dry finish. This can’t possibly be their best batch of this stuff.

Brouwers Hard Liver Fest 2009. One of my favorites of the fest. Big sweetness up front, but enough bitterness to keep it from being cloying. Chewy body, lots of caramel and cherry notes. Bourbon is on the softer side, not the big vanilla that some of them had, siding more with the oak flavors, more mellowed. Hops had died in floralness, but provided enough bitterness to counter some of the sweetness.

clear auburn brown, rim of a head. aroma is alcohol, bourbon and woody. taste is sweet. slightly numbing palate.