Moylans Old Blarney Barley Wine

Brewed by Moylans Brewery & Restaurant
Style: Barley Wine
Novato, California USA

Bomber. Reddish orange pour with a creamy tight bubbled head and good lacing. Aroma is of fig, caramel, cherries, and an abundance of citrusy hops. Inviting. Flavor is good, but mouthfeel is chalky. There is some kind of off flavor (vegetal/celery and banana peel) that puts this lower than some of the top tier in the style. Good, but not great.

Pours a reddish amber with a thin head. Aroma of caramel, nutty, hops. Solid flavor.

Alefest sample. Dark amber with an average head. Rich malty aroma with similar flavor although this has a strong bitter finish that I didn’t see coming. Pretty good.

Bottle. Pours a copper/amber color with a light tan head. Aroma is malty with caramel, toffee, and light fruit. Flavor is toasted malts, caramel, dark fruit, toffee, and a hint of figs with a nice bitter finish

Tasted while on vacation to CA. This was a very smooth barley wine without an alcohol flavor. Though there was a dark fruit flavor, it came in a fairly dry package with some nice hops.

Dark amber, caramel , citrus, hops, yeasty, malty, nutty, little dark fruits, slight piney.

22oz bottle with no age information. Pours a rich, deep amber-red color with a creamy beige head. Lots of caramel in the nose, with plenty of citric hops as well. The flavor is big, with lots of fruity caramel sweetness and lots of hops and bitterness to round it off. Manages to be relatively well balanced between malty and bitter, with some reasonably smooth alcohol that dries the finish a bit. Full bodied with low carbonation. The texture is just a little sticky, but not too much for a barley wine. The flavors are relatively straight-forward and powerful, but remain pretty balanced and drinkable for its size. Its hard to reach a final verdict on this one. There is certainly nothing that I really dislike about it, but at the same time nothing particularly interesting or impressive. For what I would call typical, its pretty well done.

2007 Vintage

8/14/2008: Moylan’s Old Blarney Barleywine Style Ale has a dull brown color with ruby hues and an average beige head. The aroma boasts fruity malt, raisin, some alcohol, and hints of cooked apple and cinnamon. The flavor is malty with very dry, lightly roasty malt/burnt caramel and some earthy bitterness in the finish. The hops and bitterness build with each drink. The alcohol content is not apparent in the flavor. This beer has a medium body and is dry on the palate. Maybe I should have left this beer go another year or two. However, I don’t really think it would have added much. Overall this beer seems to lack depth but is still decent, drinkable, and completely worth the price!

1 pt. 6 fl. oz. bottle (Alcohol 10% by Volume; $4.99+tax) from River’s Bend Wine and Spirits in Maineville, Ohio. Rating #297 for this beer...