Green Flash Barleywine

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

GABF 2006-Spicy (nutmeg?), hoppy aroma. Taste is huge malt (brown sugar) followed by a medium full bitterness.

22 oz bottle, via fordest. Pours a clear dark amber to copper body under a small foamy beige head that left some spotty lacing. The nose is typical West Coast Barley Wine. Big resiny hops, heavy caramel and toffee maltiness, and candy like sweetness, and some moderate alcohol. The flavor is much the same, resiny bitter hops up front with the malt mid swallow, finishing with brown sugar and big alcohol on the finish. Pretty simple stuff. Mouthfeel is fairly creamy with less stickiness than I expected. A little too much foamy carbonation. Finishes with a good amount of heat. Overall, nothing too distinctive about this one. Pretty boring and straight forward, not much in the way of complexity.

The beer pours a somewhat misty mahogany brown with a portly off white creamy head that settles slowly, leaving the lace to coat the glass. Nose has a nut like sweetness, malt and caramel back it up with a hint of the hop flowers, start is quite sweet, nice malt feel, and a bit of alcohol bitterness, top is moderate in feel. Finish continues the sweetness, the alcohol evident and the hops provides a nice spiciness, a tummy warmer for sure, somewhat dry aftertaste with a lingering sweetness, a decent barleywine, and worthy of a sample.

Caramel in color with a firm, tan/orange head. Sweet caramel malts, grapefruit, hoppy, toasted, and alcohol. Pretty strong. Full, syrupy body. The citrus and grapfruit hops are fairly evident in the flavor. Hanging behind those are caramel malts, and some roastiness. Finish is nicely bitter with sweetness and some alcohol. Very nice. Strikes me as pretty close to a DIPA, but I can see why it’s a BW.

This one hurt. There was no balance: huge hops, huge alcohol taste, not that sweet for a barley wine, though. It’s not just that this was closer to a DIPA, it didn’t make a good DIPA either.

On tap at Green Flash Brewery. Pours a dark orange/light brown color with a huge white head. Fruity aroma and has a taste like apricots. I enjoyed this beer, one of the better brews from Green Flash.

This is red brown, but not deep, with a thick, long-lasting head, good lacing. The aroma is malty , fruity, with a definite, strong citrus hoppy element. It tastes of a rich maltiness typical of the style, but this is subdued in comparison to others & there’s a definite strong hoppy bitterness. Up front is hoppy bitterness, but not overpowering, a strong toffee (not caramel) malt element, then a gin-like quality (good for me, since I love gin), with a bitter, strong citrusy hop finish. It is good, but it first took a while to grow on me, which it ultimately did. The palate is somewhat thin for a barleywine, lively, and bitter. This is very good - after all, I absolutely love barleywine - but a little too hoppy & bitter for me & too light on the malt,making it kind an IPA-barleywine cross. However, it has good, solid flavour, definite complexity, and it’s interesting. It’s not my favourite barleywine, but I definitely like it.

Like a mellow version of that most arrogant of heavily-hopped flagship American micro beers, i.e., less grapefruity-astringent and more smooth and mellow on the flavor as well as finish. Just a slight shade darker and it would be a dead ringer appearance-wise.