Goose Island Batch 2000 Barleywine

Formerly brewed at Goose Island Beer Company
Style: Barley Wine
Chicago, Illinois USA

Bottle. Good looking average creamy beige head that mostly diminished. Fair lacework. Cloudy amber color. Aroma of bread, cookie, caramel, grain, nutty, apricot and peach. Also light notes of hops blends in there. Full bodied with an alcoholic texture and a soft carbonation. Maybe the alcohol dominated a bit. Moderated sweet malty flavor with light hoppy notes. Sweet and alcoholic warming finish.

I had this at the Horse Brass in Portland, OR. A great super duper hopped barley. Thick orangey amber with a creamy lace to finish. The alcohol-malt-yeast-hop combination gave it a unique toffee/sugar/bready flavor with the perfect balance attained through age.

(Bottle) Pours a cloudy burnt orange with a medium beige head. Aroma is reminiscent of walking through the dried fruit markets in the Muslim Quarters of Xian, China; along with breadiness and caramel. Flavor of fruit, bread, somewhat candish, toffee, and spices with a soft, creamy mouthfeel. Excellent barley wine!

Bottle. Just says batch 2000. Very good balance. Rich, hoppy. Lovely.

Bottle. Usual barleywine appearance-reddish brown with a minimal ring of bubbles. Nose-alcohol, bready, spicy. Taste-black pepper, medium to high sweetness, cereal malts, and low alcohol, an odd staleness, fig, wood, honey, spicy for a barleywine. Thick but not cloying mouthfeel.

Ruby orange. Eggshell bubbles slowly surface to form a solid halo. Straightforward aroma of raisins, red licorice, pale malt, and oxidation (sherry). Hops impart distant notes of apricot. Clean tickle of perfumey alcohol. Soft but loose carbonation floods the palate. Bottle conditioned. Sweetly medicinal and sherryish upfront, with ensuing notes of red licorice and gummy candy which briefly ward off the sharp oxidation-induced astringency. Fairly low attenuation results in an overly tacky body, flabby fruitiness, and noticeable lack of cleanliness. The hops, which no doubt once flourished, are much more relaxed and link up with the slick fruitiness to generate an apricot and plum marmalade effect. Munich malts’ lustrous toffee-glazed nuttiness has given way to a harsh astringency, instead, and only dull base malts reside in their wake. Hop bitterness is virtually nonexistent, unfortunately. Leafy and citric hop-derived acidity heightens toward the finish and detracts from the body’s weight. Sweet toffee and papery notes of oxidation linger and abuse the palate. I’m pleased by the well-masked alcohol and the fact that this is unfiltered and bottle conditioned. Still, despite this being relatively young, it’s tough to detect even a glimpse of brightness due of the oxidation. Further evidence that barleywine generally does not age well.

Red-beach color, little head. Rich, thick appearance and mouthfeel. Classic...absolutely classic barleywine. Minty malts with hops and caramel. So much balance here it’s tough to pick things out. Beautifully smooth. Thanks so much to Kevin, who brought this straight from Chicago on his travels to his new home in Colorado! Shared with Jazz88.

Bottle courtesy of Ughsmash sampled in mid-June ’06: Pours a clear golden bronze with amber hues and a thin, lightly-lacing off-white head. Very fresh, piny hoppy aroma on top of lots of gritty sweet caramel malt. Body starts with a good sweet viscous caramel malt and piny bitter hoppy flavor. Finishes slightly warming, but generally hides the alcohol well. A nice barleywine.