Mendocino Talon Barley Wine

Brewed by Mendocino Brewing Company
Style: Barley Wine
Hopland, California USA

Truly Great Aroma, like fresh granny smith. It looks wonderful as well, pours nice. Full rounded and not weighed down by an over abundance of one or more ingredients. Light tasting followed by a nice lingering hop flavor that hides for a while on the edge of the tongue. Usually for me a 10% barley wine ale seems so heavy, but this finishes like a regular beer. A somewhat dry finish hides the heavy of alcohol content? Good Job making this. Tested was a Nice fresh 1 pint sized bottle with a large price tag of 4.95 total. Had to try a new one, glad to see another great product from this amazing brewery/brewer… now if possible, lower the price, please?

In the bomber bottle. Maybe I’m drunk, but this was awesome! Reddish amber in color, weak head. berries and briars! Thin at the back, but a candy sweetness to the finish. Quite herb-like as well, possibly peat.

Pours a deep red color with a small off-white head. There’s a raisin and caramel thing going on with the aroma along with a small amount of piney hops. Notes of raisin, cherry, and plenty of pine in the flavor to go along with some caramel and chocolate. This beer is rather sweet and I would personally like a little more hop presence to balance that out. Still, this is not a bad beer at all.

Pours an attractive dark ruby red with a medium, but tight beige head. Aroma of dark fruits, aged malt and pine-like hops. Flavor has notes of toasted malt, caramel, plum, raisin, cherries, pipe tobacco, grapefruit/citrus and pine. The sweetness is more than balanced by a very healty dose of bittering hops. Medium body with a smooth texture and moderate carbonation, the body gets thinner as it warms. Overall, a very nice beer. It blows away their other beers.

Bomber 2004 vintage poured a clear reddish copper with a long lasting amber head. Aromas of apples, plums, and carmel. Palate was medium bodied and a bit syrupy. Flavors of apples, plums, and pepper with a bitter warming finish.

Deep copper-brown color with a a beige head that recedes to a ring of foam. Aroma of alcohol, carmellized malts, and juniper. Flavor of bread, cookie, and spicy, piney hops. Somewhat sharp flavor amplified by the strong alcohol presence. Doesn’t have the complexity one expects from a top shelf Barley Wine, but not bad.

A little heavy on the alcohol flavor and unfortunately not enough heavy complex sweetness to cover it up. Not that this was was terribly alcoholic tasting, or just as bad, a hop monster, but very a much a middle of the road BW that for some reason I was really hoping to find a fruity, syrupy malt monster within. It wasn’t there. Aromas of tea, alcohol, biscuit, caramel. Slightly thin in the mouth.

Enjoyable but quite hot. Rich bronze, clear, hop vigor, sharp but satisfying, with lots of classic barleywine characteristics with its malt balance. Needs to tone down the alcohol. Perhaps the bottle I have in my closet will be ready in another year. // re-rate with another bottle: not as hot, though only marginally a higher rating. In particular, a strong burnt caramel edge to the nose. Relatively easy drinking and a decent compliment to my vegetable side dish of spiced roasted squash.