Lagunitas Olde Gnarly Wine

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

Bottle (2004) pours a viscous translucent reddish hued dark amber, medium off-white foamy head, lovely lacing, with very light carbonation.   Sweet alcoholic nose with only a subtle hint of bready malts.   Very thick and viscous on first sip, with a sharp hop bite that quickly settles to a nice super sweet malty background.   This one I think will age very well.   Full bodied with a very viscous mouthfeel.   Slightly cloying, but I think over time that will mellow out to produce a fantastic Barley Wine.   Finishes sweet, with a bready maltiness that hangs on.   While the alcohol is noticable in the aroma and on the tongue, it isn’t sharp nor detracting.   I think I should pick up more of this to lay down for a while.   YUM!

On tap at The Thirsty Monk. Sweet brown sugar, caramel and toffee. Huge sweet nose with fresh hops that are fruity and floral. Coppery amber clear with thin off-white lacing head. Medium heavy body with medium carbonation. Tastes like caramel and cotton candy with some floral-fruity hops thrown in. Mild warming. Nice barley wine.

22oz bottle courtesy of zinister. Has a good earthly aroma of barley and oats. Sweet malts on the nose also. Amber body with good beige head. Good malted caramel sweet sugar and sone dried fruits. Thick body texture and was smooth in the palate. Enjoable brew.

Wham! Big fresh hop nose with some caramel tones. Dark amber color a tall foamy head. Big malty base with dark fruit and berry tones. Wham! hops again at towards the end with a massive bitterness. Great transitions, though, and an overall superb balance. The alcohol adds a kick to the flavor in the tradition of Bigfoot and other west coast barleywines that I truly love. Wham!

Bottle shared with HogTownHarry, blankboy, jerc & mabel - courtesy of blankboy. Dark orange-amber with a small off-white head. Aroma of rich brown sugar, resiny hops, fruity malt - mmmmmm! Great flavour - caramel malt off the top, some notes of candied orange peel and cocoa, with a slowly building hop bitterness to finish. Mighty, mighty fine.

22oz bottle via trade with jazz88 - Thanks Eric! - Pours copper with a fair offwhite head. Nice nose of citrus hops and big sweet caramel malts, some brown sugar, and a touch of cherry. Flavor is very sweet, caramel malts, brown sugar, cherry, raisin, and a nice bitter hop finish. Palate is full bodied and quite full in the mouth as well. Not overly carbonated. Smooth and very drinkable for the size of this beer. No sign of the 9.7% alcohol can be found. Tasty.. More proof that the west coast barley wines are the best..

22 oz bottle, 2004 vintage. Pours a clear amber colored body under a small beige head that quickly faded to a thin patchy film. Aroma is of deep toffee and caramel malt with some nuttiness, papery oxidation, and light alcohol. Flavor seems to be a little past it’s peak, with the toffee and caramel battling it out with a moderate level of oxidation. Finishes with quite a bit of papery notes and light alcohol. Mouthfeel is medium bodied and very slightly sticky with fairly soft carbonation. This just made me want to try a fresh bottle of this more than anything because I’m not sure that this was the best that this beer could offer.

2008 Release; Sampled June 2008
A standard pour produces a three-finger thick, amber tinged, tan colored head in my 25cl tulip glass. The head is hop-sticky, leaving a nice lace pattern on the sides of the glass and subsiding with a creamy dense consistency. The beer is a clear, deeply red stained, amber color that shows a brilliantly clear, cranberry stained, metallic copper hue when held up to the light. The aroma is quite redolent of hops as even as I pour this I notice sticky hop notes oozing from this beer. The nose is a mix of candied orange peel, big lychee, grapefruit and berry-candy. A solid backdrop of spruce, candied pine and floral aromatics are tempered by sticky, sweet, amply caramelized malt sugar aromas. Toasted malt notes of bread crust and biscuits are found in the far finish. This has a nice mix of big hop character and sticky, rich malt aromas that put the nose squarely in the Barleywine camp (as opposed to a Double IPA for instance, this just has too much malt character).

Sweet and aggressively hoppy, this is a hop lovers wet-dream. A creamy, viscous thickness is not really tempered even by the aggressive, almost fizzy carbonation. The hop flavors here are dominated by citrus and tropical fruit flavors; lychee, apricot and a huge candied citrus mix of ruby-red grapefruit, bergamot and sweet, ripe tangelo dominate the start and middle of each sip, towards the finish a sharp, menthol / herbal hop bitterness becomes noticeable, but it doesn’t drown out the sweet hop-fruit flavors. This has a very clean malt character, the malt flavors are as complex as the aroma might have suggested; really though it is just that the hop character is too big to pull a lot of nuances from the malt notes. The malt provides lots of sweetness to accentuated the hops and lots of viscous mouthfeel that makes this a chewy brew.

This is quite a nice Barleywine, it has a really clean, hop fruit character to it, by which I mean that this is not overly aggressive in its hop character. The bitterness and herbal / pine flavors are much subdued comparatively, though they are still certainly present. This is actually fairly quaffable for such a big beer, in fact it is a rarity that I wouldn’t mind tackling the entire 22oz bottle on my own. Simplistic, sure, but fresh it is just so enjoyable and hoppy, yet with ample smooth malt character, this is a great way to spend an evening.

Purchased: <a href=http://www.ratebeer.com/Places/ShowPlace.asp? Liquors, Tucson AZ