Green Flash Barleywine

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

Bottled vintage 2008.
Clear copper color, small beige head. Bready, some citrus and hops in the nose. Bready, sweaty hoppy, some licorice, alcohol, long bitterness. More like double IPA than barley wine ... or maybe Bigfoot-like.

Bomber but was labeled as the old 2nd anniversary BW- not the new BW label. PPRBSG. Pours a nice deep amber with a large frothy head. Aroma is big toasty and sweet malts, figs and tons of other fruity esters, raisin- and peach- good hops still lingering- I think the bottle has been aged for a while though. Flavor is a mellow hop backbone with lots of big fruity esters and lots of nice smooth sweet big toasty malts, light caramel, toffee, some molasses, and mellowed hops in the back for a good bitterness. Smooth and easy drinking.

Courtesy of Cartdan. pours brown, beige head and nice golden lacing. aroma and taste, malty, strong caramel notes with cereal presence. Light citrus hops add some faint notes of bitterness followed by the caramel. Palate has notes of dry dark fruits followed by warming abv.

65 cl bottle at my garage-tasting May 8th. Vintage 2008. Dark amber/brown color, fine beige head. Aroma is fine hops and malt, some fruit, hints of alcohol. Flavor is malty sweetness and hops in very fine company, also a bit alcohol. I love it!

Bottle: Burnt sienna color with a light brown head that moves to a thick ring around the edge of the glass. It has a wonderful aroma of wood, kindling, alcohol, an old couch in an old house in humid Alabama, celery, and a little brown sugar. The flavor is robust and much more bitter than I was expecting. It is almost thick enough to chew on which provides some nice texture and fullness of body. I don’t really taste an overwhelming sweetness that is usually dominant in BW’s, but I do detect something mildly sweet. It has a dry finish. Pretty good, but not in my top 5 BW’s.

Bottle pours a slightly hazy deep caramel color witha short lived tan skin of a head. Big sweet brown sugar aroma with a little furniture polish and tanned leather. Flavor is more bitter, less sweet than many of the style. The bitterness is very powerful and overshadows the sweet malts that I expected. Strong alcohol component and rather fumey. Strong burn on re-entry. I’d like to try another in case there was something wrong with this one.

Smells of alcohol, fruits and sugars with a deep red color in the glass. Malt at first taste with a strong hop backbone. Definitely a potent and tasty brew.

Pours a cloudy ruby with a wall of lace, as my friend CapnCascade puts it. Sweet fruity aroma - dates and toffee. Quite a strong malty taste - could have sat around for another year or two. Astringent strong malting with definite presence of alcohol and lingering hops with the alco-burn. Thin body with decent fine carbonation. Love the finish - nice dry hops and complex, yet not cloying sweet malting win the game, as it were.