Green Flash Barleywine

Brewed by Green Flash Brewing Co.
Style: Barley Wine
Vista, California USA

Appearance: Pours a hazy, dark amber body with a rather thin ring of beige-colored bubbles. Smell: The aroma is packed with pine needles and ruby red grapefruit -- any maltiness seems to be an afterthought. Taste: Dry, biscuity maltiness with the vaguest hints of brown sugar and dark caramel. Full hoppiness with an intense bitterness for a so-called barleywine. Plenty piney and chock full of grapefruit, maybe a bit of wood in there as well. Warming on the bitter, woody finish. Mouthfeel: Full-bodied. Medium-low carbonation. Drinkability: Not a bad DIPA! As a barleywine, it’s definitely coming up short in terms of malt depth. Sure, you could chalk it up to merely being "young", but I just don’t see enough malt character present to really ever come to the fore..

22 oz bottle 2008 vintage. Pours a deep mahogany color with a 1/2" tan head. Leaves rings of lacing on the glass. Nose is dark fruit & caramel candy. Fairly thick warm palate. Flavor is a nice mellow blend of caramelized candy, brown sugar, molasses and warmed by 10% abv alcohol. Nice brew to sip while you relax.

Bottle. Reddish, amber color with a frothy tan head. Lots of sheeting and lacing on the glass. Buttery, sweet toffee aroma. Tastes rather sweet, with a caramel or toffee flavor, with an astringent aftertaste of tea, and hops bitterness. I found this a bit agressive and harsh to drink, despite its strong points.

Pours deep amber clear/cloudy. There is a ton of foam on the pour that is light tan in color. It settles to 1 inch frothy head and holds for as long as you need it to. There is little bubbling in the glass. The ale has a strong sweet, enticing barley aroma that you can smell from 18 inches away. Upon closer inspection a nice floral hop aroma is present. The flavor is strong, bready, grassy, malty, alcoholic and incredibly bitter. The mouth feel is rather flat and I coughed after the first sip, and it gives a slight burn on the way down. The finish is "kill you" bitter, and hides under the tongue. Somehow, it spite or despite all of that, its a good brew.

Bomber, thanks, theisti. The body was deep amber to copper with a khaki head. The aroma was massively sweet with caramel and apples. The taste was sweet toffee with some apple core. A nice tobacco spice hint. A decent brew.

Bottle: Cooper red colour, with, creamy head. Aroma of honny, citrus, flowers, and lots of malts. Flavor is malty,viny mouth feeling,medium body and medium malty/alcy fnish Nice

2008 vintage 22 oz. bottle served in trappist glass- poured turbid darken amber with red tints, light carbonation, 4mm off white head bubbled away a little too quickly, small groups of foam for lacing. Aroma of a caramel malt and citrus hops. Hits the mouth with a high-medium body, sweetness can be found in the background of a well concealed hopbomb that goes from the start to almost the finish, ends bitterly. Not sure what to make of this one... just seems out of balance to me.

A lot of candied caramel in this. Definitely seems like a 3 hour boil. Not too much hops coming through. The candied notes aren’t too sweet or cloying.