Lagunitas Olde Gnarly Wine

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

Bottle @ thewolfs pre-festival tasting, Kolding.
[thank you, dedollewaitor]
Pours deep red-brown with a small, creamy, off-white film head. Aroma has caramel and a good dose of fruity American hops. Fine oily mouthfeel. Good balance of malts, alcohol and hops. Lots of sharpish citric and softer fruity hops, good base of sweet caramel. Nice BW.

Pours a dark copper amber color, with a big fluffy light tan head. Nice lacing. A little bready, with a lot of dark malt and dark fruit, especially apples and figs. Pretty standard barley wine aroma. Maybe got a touch of gingerbread in there as well. The flavor seems to have a large dark fruit presence as well. I got some plums, grapes, and apples all fighting for supremacy. The bready yeast flavors I usually get in BW’s were seemingly kept under wraps for the most part. Not too bitter for a barley wine, I rather enjoyed this brew.

Nice aroma of malts, candy sugar, caramel, bread. Appearance is a beautiful ruby red, thin white foam. Flavor is very sweet, fruit, bread, caramel. A little bit of the alcohol comes through, but not much considering the 11% ABV. Finish is fruity, slight piney hop bittering, booze. Very nice! Calssic Barley Win, and a good representative of the style. Thick and oily mouthfeel. Awesome

Carmel, sweet and alcohol are main flavors. Hop level is good, but I can’t taste them over the malt sweetness. Dark amber color and good head.

5-14-08 bottle
Semi thick amber maroon color with a nice huge ivory colored thick head. Smell is sweet caramel and brown sugar. Flavor is sweet and syprup like with some alcohol present. Palate is thick and creamy and matches the flavor and theme nicely. Overall, quite drinkable but just a hint too much burning sugar in the flavor for me - in addition to the hefty alcohol that becomes much more prominent in the aftertaste.

maroonish amber pour with a lasting beige head. Looks nice. Smell is kind of a dull non-descript cardboardy sweetness. Taste is fairly sweet up front, but balanced beyond that with moderate hopping and some alcohol presence as well that I don’t particularly care for. Has some syrupy, yet balanced alcohol and pine flavor, but not abundantly flavorful...The malt is kind of cardboard like and dull. Slick, thick syrupy mouthfeel but with a soft prickly bite. If only the smell and flavor were as nice. Found it to be a bit above average, but not spectacular.

Body is a hazy amber. Very quickly diminishing head. Nose is sweet and lightly alcoholic. Very little hopping is evident, with a syrupy-sweet caramel body. Not bad.

08 Bottle. Pours a clear ruby-copper color with a thick beige head that stuck around quite well. Really nice aroma of caramel, some nice citrus grapefruit, orange with some resinous pine in the background. Nice lightly sweet caramel malt with some light toffee with strong undertones of grapefruit and other citrus, leading into a lightly piny, dry finish. Very full, slick mouthfeel. I only tried this because I didn’t realize the guy I was going to send it to could already get it, but I will probably pick up a few more now.