OHanlons Thomas Hardys Ale (vintage 2003 and later)

Bottle. 2007 edition. Dark reddish brown color with pretty much no head. Aroma is fruity malt and alcohol. Flavor is sweet and complex, but also slightly harsh. Tons of malt, fruit, wood, wine, and alcohol. Good, but not overly impressive. Although I stashed a bottle away I’m looking forward to trying the more mature version of this barley wine.

@ Tara’s Speciality Beer House in Killaloe: year 2003: Deep chestnut red, no head, strong vinous notes of sherry, overripe fruit, wood, hard roasted malt. Very sweet taste and long sweet finish, warming alcohol in finish. I have had younger years and it defenetly gets better the older it is...looking forward to 10, 15 or 20 years version.

Bottle from Bigmmartin. Not impressive really. Sour raisin and alcohol aroma. Nice but unimpressive. Flavor is sweet with some slight bitterness and slightly bland. I think this would be much better aged. I will try again.

11.2 oz. into sniffer. Deep ruby red with barely any head (and I poured this thing as violently as I could into my sniffer). Aroma is funky: hints of soy sauce (GOD I hope this isn’t an oxidized bottle!) and funky roasted sweet malt. Flavor is a bit soy saucy (sweet soy saucy) (maybe this is intentional?!) and boozy. It isn’t as unbearable as other soy saucy brews I have had (Sam Adams 3bock comes to mind) but it doesn’t hold a candle to some of the great Barley Wines I have had. I am writing this sentence after having gotten half way through the bottle: this has proven to be a truly unbearable brew and has thus become a 6 dollar drain pour. Thick body on the palate, coating, and no carbonation. Overall: in all aspects, WAY to sweet and saucy and generally overrated. Someone need to explain the soy sauce thing to me, whether it is intentional or whether I keep getting oxidized brews (they tend to be older vintages, which leads me to believe it is an oxidation thing.) Fuck me this was disappointing…

Taken tragically young. Murky chestnut pour hissing insistently with beige at 11.7%. Not crying, but certainly snivelling faintly to itself. Aroma dribble-making chewy vine fruit steeped in brandy, vanilla, orange rind, fat humming yeastiness, fresh leather, creaking old tun, musty hops, Twiglet, marzipan, walnut. Opens with a soapy sweetness and a gnaw of citrus (hops+house yeast) I’ve never tasted in a barley wine this big. Fat but agile, with heady orange-accented fruitiness (rind), spiced teabag, fruit loaf, Marmite on wholemeal, a swill of clove, overripe plum and nectarine fruit, fallen apples left mouldering in the rain for a few months, toffee, malt whiskeyish oak, a bit more citrus, the occasional splash of raw spirituous booze glowing all the way down. The fruit in this beer is what really smacks me in the face, and it’s plummy and pithy as much as it is shrivelled and curranty. Age would undoubtedly soften out the edges, but this is already a big, mellow, mildly hallucinatory sipper. Class A caramel softness and hop-derived tang in dangerous equilibrium. Wicked.