This is damn near perfect. Smooth, hoppy, malty, tasty. Tried it back to back with SN Bigfoot and am hard pressed to pick a favorite btwn the two, but I choose this.

Bottle. Nice looking amber color with reddish tones, smaller than expected head. Excellent barleywine aroma. Great barleywine flavor. Nicely balanced malt/hop ratio. Smooth and perfect strength beer.

This is the perfect time for a fine sipping brew, one that will help take the chill out of bones getting cold. Barleywine is the perfect beer style to do the trick. Barleywines are rich, complex, strong, warming ales that have an alcohol content approaching the strength of wine. Most weigh in at anywhere between 9-11% abv, but can go higher. These beers are meant to be sipped and savored, like a fine brandy, port, or single malt scotch. Barleywine is often served in a snifter in small servings, and make the perfect after dinner drink, or night cap. Most barleywines are very malt accented beers, to the point where some have to be aged a few years, or they can be a bit too cloying. Some West Coast brewers have put a truly American spin on this beer style, they brew barleywines that are not only very malty, but very hoppy as well. I have a lot of experience with this style, barleywine is one of my all time favorites, and I have tried literally dozens of examples from a variety of breweries. Sierra Nevada’s Bigfoot Barleywine is the classic example of "West Coast" big, citric hoppy barleywine, they were the first to add a big smack of hop character in a beer that is traditionally dominated by malt. Other West Coast brewers have followed suit, Stone Brewing Company’s Old Guardian, and Snoquilme Falls Old Rattle Snake come to mind. The Lagunitas Brewing Company of Petaluma, CA is following that West Coast tradition. Their Old Gnarleywine is a wonderful, big, strong, malty barleywine, but like the other examples I have mentioned, has a really great hop character as well. Old Gnarleywine pours to an opaque deep amber/ruby color, with a slight tan head, and a very soft carbonation. The nose on this beer is fantastic, it is just jam packed with malt and hop aromas. Big whiffs of sweet malt, butter scotch, and toffee, marry with piney, citric hop aromatics. Peppery hints of alcohol can also be detected. The palate is quite malty. Rich, complex, sweet malt flavors of fresh bread, butter scotch, toffee, and some estery fruit coat the tongue. The body is huge on this beer, very viscous and syrupy. This beer finishes with more of that sweet malt character up front, then dries out to a nice hop bitter bite and a warming, high octane, burn. Really a wonderful barleywine, it has both great malt character, and some great hop character as well. This is not as hoppy as Bigfoot, but like Bigfoot, the hop character is most vibrant when this beer is young. Barleywine can be laid down for years, but the hop character really starts to fade after about two years or so. I like to drink barelywines such as this and Bigfoot young, and enjoy that big smack of hops, but also age a few bottles as well. I wouldn’t pair this beer with food, this is a sipping beer that can stand alone.

22 oz. brown bomber bottle. 2007 Autumn batch. Poured out a brilliant copper color, with a huge tan colored head. Aromas are of cedar aged cigars, caramel, grainy malts, sweet, fragrant hops. Flavors are of burnt sugars, sweet hops, caramel, some tropical fruits, malts galore. Thick mouthfeel, rich and chewy. Sweet aftertaste. I’ve been waiting a few years to try this beer, and it did not disappoint.

What a great brew. This brewery is great! They always brew great products that are distinctive in their own right from every other sort of the styles they brew. Good barleywine. I found this at a small liquor store that I’d never been to before. Must have been sitting there since november or something. So they aged it for me. Great pour. Nice dark copper hue. Shiny and amber like. Head dissipates treacly on the rim of my glass. Smells like: Floral arrangements, blue cheese, soy sauce, and a vanilla like bourbon. Predominately cheesey though. My favorite. Taste: Hints of cedar, cheddar cheese, raisins, tart cherries, anniseed. Lagunitas has a very distinctive yeast strain that they use. It has the dryness of a lager and yet retains the fruitiness of ale yeasts on the forefront, only drying out on the back of your tongue as the beer runs past it. Great brew. Alcohol is almost non existent except in the aftertaste. Very skillfully masked. I’m sure the aging has something to do with this. G-rat