Odell Curmudgeons Nip

Brewed by Odell Brewing Company
Style: Barley Wine
Fort Collins, Colorado USA

BB March 20, 2006. Thick amber/brown beer with a fast fading white head. Very malty and slightly plummy aroma. Sweet caramel, brown sugar, malty body. Flavour is a bit earthy but comes across a bit confused. Fuggles, dusty, slightly cardboardy. Flavour is not as sweet as the aroma would suggest. Still full-bodied. Spicy, peppery finish. Improves as it warms, but never really comes together.

Cloudy reddish-amber colour. Very yeasty aroma meshing with dark fruits. Big malty notes, at times seemingly oxidized but at other times very fresh. Hints of toffee, but mainly toasty with little hop character at all.

12 oz bottle and served in my Duval snifter: Nice coppery hue with a slight yeast haze topped by a small fizzy but mostly lasting beige head and good lace. The aroma has notes of almond, honey, apricot, orange zest, starfruit, caramel and roasted malting, and a touch of piney and grassy hops. The taste starts quite sweet and fruity with bready background. What keeps the brew from becoming too much is a nice pepper and clove finish and a lighter than expected body. Not that the body is thin, but if it was an heavier or sticky, it would be overbearing. Some nice twangy and lingering bitter aftertaste. Very traditional, more towards the British style of barleywine than the hopped up PNW styles or the massive booze bombs.

bottle. nice light brown pour with a jaundiced smooth medium sized head. smells like a fresh pack of life savers. sweet is the the one word that jumps out. then other flavors emerge, grape, caramel,especially in the finish. other flavors are walnut, wet grass, maple syrup, cherries, and a bit of booze mixed in lightly. not overpowering. a definite english style barleywine. very direct and enjoyable.

Thanks to Crosling- drank one bottle, then chugged another!!!!!! Pours a slightly hazy scarlett ruby color. Almost no head. ARoma of cherries, toffee, and roasted almonds. Flavor is caramel, cherries, vanilla, smooth and easy to drunk, but nothing really stands out.

Pour is nice clear reddish brown with thin off white head...smell over the top sweet with dark fruits and alcohol...I mean over the top sweet...taste is very much the same...finish sticky sweet...

’03 12 oz swilled right from the bottle. It’s oxidized but I see right through the cardboard flavor to get to the juicy middle. Like a tootsie roll, theres some grape with chocolate in the middle. Tasty sweet grapes teeter on the brink of becoming raisens. My experience may be enhanced at this time but this isnt bad at all.

This was a 12oz bottle from 2003 that I got in a trade from bditty187. A slow forming beige head finally rose to a little over half an inch over deep thick brownish red body. The head died quicker than it formed leaving no lace in its demise. Aroma of sweet malt with notes of various dark fruits rose from the glass with hints of molasses and a touch of alcohol in the mix. This has a sticky sweet flavor that seemed to stay in your mouth for a while and also had dark fruit notes. Quite a warmer too as I warmed up real quick drinking this and it had a bit of an alcohol bite to it as well but not too much. Aftertaste was a bittersweet fruity one that was quite good. About a medium body with a sticky feel to it that warms you up nicely. Very tasty stuff here that I could drink a few of. Balanced enough that the sweetness is not overbearing. Give it a shot if you can find it.