Marin Old Dipsea Barleywine Style Ale

Brewed by Marin Brewing Company
Style: Barley Wine
Larkspur, California USA

Very sweet aroma, almost sickeningly so. Nice dark coloring, combining almost no head with a very nice mahogony color. Very sweet flavor, much more than I was expecting. Doesn’t show the alcohol, which is nice, but the flavor is a little overpowering for me. Doesn’t really compare with the Full Sail barleywine.

Draft. Dark mahogony color with a beige head. Summer fruit aroma (strawberry) with caramel malts. Caramel flavor, some strawberry fruit flavors, and light hop. Rich body, nice balance, hides alcohol well. Smooth, but nothing outstanding.

22 oz. bottle from Mr. Liquor. Poured dark brown with a thin head that still left a nice lacing. Aromas of caramel vanilla. Flavors of caramel with a hoppy finish and an alcohol aftertaste. Very tasty.

A darker barley wine. Unusual, interesting aroma, with brown sugar, fruit punch, melon, and a strong alcohol presence. Initially sweet, dessert-bread-like quickly fading flavor interlaced with tropical fruits and a mild nuttiness. Cuts out alarmingly quickly, leaving a padded, soft feeling in the mouth. A good bitter balance to the maltiness. A good, but not great, barley wine.

Bottle. BevMo Geary St. SF. Balanced but restrained aroma. Malty with some hops with typical barley wine richness. Dark red in color with lots of visible carbonation. Maybe some particalia, but too dark to tell. Not much lace. Rich, sweet, alcohol flavor with hops. I like this brew! A little cloying, but barley wine-like. A lot better effort than Moylan’s Old Blarney. Very nice B-wine.

THis barley wine pours with a deep amber body topped by a thin head with a good amount of lacing. The aroma is sweet and very oaky with notes of alcohol and a touch of alcohol. The flavor is very similar with note of vanilla. Full bodied and warming.

The aroma had coriander and dark fermented fruit, and caramel. The flavor had the same. The beer poured a reddish brown color w/ no head and lacing. The mouthfeel was medium bodied and creamy.

Received Old Dipsea as a Christmas gift from my buddy who lives in SFO. Double duece was cellared for three months before sampling. I drank the barleywine last night while bottling a homebrew. After opening Old Dipsea I was greeted with cherry-plum-fruit aroma with a hint of smoke. Medium bodied barleywine with a color dark as a RUN DMC sweatsuit. Slight lacing with a light colored head gave it a stout like appearance. Light on the alcohol "twinge" I expect in a barleywine. Northern California has great breweries, Marin may be one of them. This offering was very good, just not top notch.