North Coast Old Stock Cellar Reserve Brandy Barrel

Formerly brewed at North Coast Brewing Company
Style: Barley Wine
Fort Bragg, California USA

(Bottle, 2005 vintage) Pours a cloudy mahogany body with nice legs and a spare quickly diminishing beige head. Aroma of brandy, wood, toffee, vanilla, caramel, and brown sugar. Flavor of vanilla, toffee, bread, wood, brandy, tootsie roll, and caramel malt with a dry finish. Excellent!

Bottle at luckty piere’s shack of partys disco dance-off tasting party shack pieres of disco. Alround rating: Rich, marmalade, fruit cake, ginger, wood age(however not as much as the bourban), fruity peppery finish. Perhaps too big for me, but really nice stuff.

Bottle at Magic_dave6’s disco dance tasting. Dark brown, no head. Coconut, teak, burnt malt, brandy, calvados. Mouth is really good, slight spirit burn, lots of apples and sherried tones, sweet, caramelised sugar. Brilliant in every way.

375 ml bottle from Kan. What a nose!!! Black grapes, blueberry, light oak, warm alcohol, and sweet toffee and chocolate. Fantastic. Not all that impressive looking though. The pour is brown with some red hues, and a quickly fading soapy tan head. Wonderful flavors. I’ve always thought brandy barrels are the way to do with barley wine, and this is the best example. Great grape, wood, toffee, chocolate flavor with a bit of warm alcohol to make sure you know what you are drinking. Medium body. Mouth filling. Average carbonation. Just enough to be a complement. Average finish. I’d like it to hang around for a bit longer. Really though. I really can’t think of what else I’d want in such a beer. Its a damn shame that its so difficult to come by. Thanks a million, Kan, for the hook up.

Bottle at Toms Glasgow tasting 2 ... Brown/red ... nice vine fruitbarley wine nose ... sweet malty fruity ...rich fruity vanilla ... with ligth toffee tones.

Big thanks again to iowaherkeye for this one, probably in my top 10 most wanted. Thanks man! Poured a cloudy brown red with a thin off white head. Aroma was sweet dried fruit. Flavor had an up front brandy edge, along with toffee, plum, and vanilla. Finishes smooth, low carbonation and creamy. Not much of a hint of the abv. Very good! Thanks joey.

Thanks to Bu11zeye for this. Poured a cloudy brown with excellent off-white head, good retention. Aroma of sweet malt, some fruity notes, brandy. Flavor was woody, notes of brandy, sweet malt. Low carbonation with a medium-heavy mouth feel.

Pours to a murky, beautiful chestnut-burgundy shade lit with bright red around the edges and giving up its foam as quickly as it forms; bubbles skirt the surface restively like waterbugs. Aroma is dominantly brandy, with tones of plum, baked pear, butterscotch, and vanilla. Very sweet, and quite warm, but never hot. Part way down the sweetness becomes less vinous and rich and turns toward candied almonds, powdered sugar, and creme brulee. Tastes like the barrel and little else; plum, vanilla, milk chocolate, honeydew melon, and raisin, all coated in a syrupy, flambeed reduction of basic brandy sweetness. Ultimately, though, the flavor is vibrant and interesting, and it seems that brandy aging might be less apt to suffocate the present intricacies than something less subtle like bourbon would be. This is less a searing, coconut vanilla syrup than it is a decadent, melted essence of toffee cake and warm cinnamon sugar. Alcohol presents itself in friendly warmth in the mid palate, with some acidity of pineapple and blood orange. Impressively intricate throughout, despite its weight. Palate is sparkly and full; somewhat bready, and very wet. Finish brings more spirit and some burnt caramel to coat the mouth indefintely; very lengthy and bold. Carefully polished and presented with particular sophistication, this one seems bursting with the urge to overstep itself and yet consistently manages not to. A stellar example of barrel aging that somehow employs equal parts finesse and overkill. Thanks John!