Lagunitas Olde Gnarly Wine

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

Bottle @ thewolf-and-his-flock-of-sheep tasting session. Clear orange-red color. Aroma of sugar, caramel malt, hop. Bitter taste, malty, toffee, sugary.

Orange-brown with light head. Aroma that sends you into a trance. Light malt body with a lower than expected spice quotient. Very good indeed.

twenty’aught-8 version, so didn’t last long. 9.7% this year!. cloudy amber, thick small brown head with good lacing. sweet malty, caramelly, hoppy, a little towards "old" hops, but stll rather fresh for a BW. flavor is malty, accented by flowery hops, and a nice dose of bitterness, also caramelly sweetness, faint old beer taste too. ends sweet and malty. aftertaste is dry sweet and malty. even though it’s not that dry in the flavor, you can feel the dryness in the aftertaste. lots of everything in this one.

Medium yellow beige head. Deep red body. Intense strway grainy malt aroma, very firm and deep, with raisiny caramelly notes and traces of citric hops. Dry-sweet intense straw and malts taste with caramelly burnt almonds notes. Fruity alcoholic notes, too. Citric, bitter hoppy notes throughout, as well as toffee. Dry burnt almonds and citrus aftertaste. Very, very good. (0.65l bottle shared by gr0ve.)

In the bomber bottle at The Brickskeller. 2006 vintage. Pours a clear dark amber with an abundant, but fleeting off-white head. The residual head after die-off is a thin but impermeable layer. The first aroma is of chocolate and alcohol. There’s an essence of wheat in there as well. Little to no lacing remains. The esophageal burn is extreme. This is just too green to drink in its first year of life. The flavor is medicinal. It is thick for sure, but not so thick that you have to chip it out of the glass. You get heartburn from this beer immediately. Aroma of apricots. I think this vintage will mellow nicely with time. The strong hop bitterness is totally lost inside this beer. It seems much stronger than the promised 9.7% ABV. This is a barleywine with a rough edge of still being a child. I’d say 1-2 years of mellowing will do it good. Dave is such a big shot that he should buy these up and store them for a couple of years before even allowing goobers like me to stroll in and order it off the Brick book. It has an outrageous bitter chocolate aroma and flavor. The taste is in fact not far from Gran Marnier. You need a cautious discipline when you drink this. An odd saltiness emerges at mid bottle, or am I just getting drunk? Seems quite bicarbonate in character. Now I’m getting lots of Tootsie Roll candy out of it. Rivlets of alcohol can be seen in the light through the beer. This begins to dehydrate you after awhile. Leaves you with chocolate chip cookie dough burps.

Bottle. hazy amber colour with a firm tan head. Flora and grapefruityl hop aroma with a dense sweetness of blackberries and caramel. Aromatic grapefruity flavour of flowers with a solid malty backbone of blackberries, plums and molasses. Long floral aftertaste of blue fruits and figs with a strong aromatic floral undertone. A really nice US BW with a pleasant maltiness. Thanks MrWalker.

Really good! Pours with a large, creamy, off-white head with lots of lacing. Nice red body. Lots of floral hops in the aroma. Taste is big, malty, caramel. Mouth coating, very syrupy. Amazing! Re-rate: 11% for well under $5 per bomber! I thought this was one of the best buys of the year last year, and one of the most underated beers of 2008...let’s see how the new 2009 compares: Nice tan head on a ruby body. Good lace. Toffee and orange zest, yeast aroma. Taste is caramalized pineapple with burnt maple. Syurpy mouth...I would give this years batch a 3.7 instead of last years 4.2.

Bottle. A dark amber color with a little bit of red and a beige head that quickly falls. Hops make a great flavor thats backed up with a little caramel sweetness finishing with a mild pine hop bitterness. Aroma isn't overly strong, but there's an earthy hopiness to it. At first sip it feels like a heavy body, but its not thick at all. Medium finish that leaves yiou wanting more. Very good beer that hides it's alcohol until about half bottle. and then just adds a warming touch. Very nice all-round balance on a well made beer.