Lagunitas Brown Shugga

Brewed by Lagunitas Brewing Company
Style: Barley Wine
Petaluma, California USA

This is a remarkable beer. It is better than tha average barleywine. It starts off with a fruity and sugary aroma, and at first sip you taste the namesake brown sugar on top of the typical barley wine flavors. The alcohol presence is noticeable but subdued, and the hops don’t bite nearly as bad as other barleywines I have tasted. Good stuff! After aging a few I noticed that a decent amount of citrus comes out over time, but the sugar, toasted sugar, and sweetness still come through.

Flaske. Velkendte lagunitas duft. Meget stærk og ikke så afbalanceret som jeg havde håbet på, men stadig en yderst drikbar BW. ALkoholen slår dog lidt for meget igennem påtrods af den aggressive humling.

A Mes rate: bottle at Tom’s "I’m gonna go urinate, then bonnie masel up big time" tasting.
Amber coloured with a thin white head. Overly rich in the aroma with heavy pukey malt and some paint stripper. Thankfully the flavour is much better. Grassy hops and all round nice bitterness. Slight papery note lets it down but it’s still a fair bit better than the nose. Decent enough but in a blind tasting I’d have never guessed it was a barley wine. Maybe I was just a little pished. Tom, can we please sleep now, and not open that 75cl of DFH Fort between the two of us?

65,5cl bottle@Olbaren,Copenhagen. Pours deep hazy amber with a white head. Aroma is sugar, alcohol, malts, caramel & hops. Bread & buiscuit also. Full bodied, oily, slick & rich all around. Sweet & warm. The bitter hops & sweetness goes hand in hand nicely. Very good drinkability & nice beer from Lagunitas!

12 oz. Red-copper with a three-finger, lasting head. Aroma is orange, resin, and honey. Flavor is earthy honey, cured leaf, and molasses. Sweetish front, but fairly balanced overall with strong resin and citrus notes overlaying the whole thing and showing up more at the finish, along with some slight alcohol. Medium body is mostly smooth, slightly watery, and has a dry warming, slightly alcoholic finish. Pretty decent barleywine, but some flavor complexity is missing for this one to make the top tier.

Beer pours with amber color and nice two finger head and some lacing. Aroma is piney hops that remind me of dish soap. The flavor is caramel malts with a strong pine hop presence with citrus notes and of course, brown sugar. Not as sweet as I thought/feared it would be and actually fairly well balanced. Very carbonated and thick in the mouthfeel was chewy and "prickly" on my tongue.

Fizzy head on an attractive amber body. Unappealing label on this 12 ounce bottle. Sharp, complex, malty aroma. There is a funny oily scent in there. The flavor is full and has different facets to it. There is a brown sugary sweetness up front, and then the almost 10% ABV becomes prominent. A surge of (West Coast?) hops steps in at the end. This is no summer porch beer, but another robust release from Lagunitas. It reminded me of some Dogfish Head brews.

I love this beer! Pours a nice red copper color with a medium head out of a 12oz bottle. Has an aroma of brown sugar and honey with a little bit of hops. The initial flavor is sweet and clean, tasting of brown sugar, molasses and honey. Finishs with a nice, tart, hoppy flavor. Has a lingering bitterness that perfectly balances the high alcohol content. A great beer.