Orkney Skull Splitter (Bottle)

Brewed by Orkney (Sinclair Breweries)
Style: Barley Wine
Stromness, Orkney, Highlands & Islands, Scotland

12oz bottle. Thick oily looking beer, dark copper with no head or lacing. Smells like a wee heavy, with caramel malt and dark fruit coming through. The taste is starts off very wee heavy and finishes like a english barley wine. Heavy up front on caramel with a tinge of hops and finishing with a dark rich fruitiness and a slight alcohol burn. Tasty and pleasant, the heavy palate and burn keep it from being extremely drinkable but its definitely something I’ll drink again.

I had this beers at Chimes East as part of my around the world tour of beers. I ordered for two reasons, it had a kick a$$ name and I’m part Scottish. Can’t go wrong with that right? Man was I wrong. It pured a dark copper color with a thick white head and looked appealing but it smelled skunky and tasted like oily prune juice.

I thought it was quite a scotchy barley wine if thats what it gets classified as. Spicey and heavier mouthfeel, I thought it hit the mark pretty well. Pretty good.

Very dark red brown with a beige head. Doesn’t look too good. Rich chocolate aroma with Christmas cake, dark fruits and something wheaty a bit like Ovaltine. Taste is intensely sweet, dark and warming. Not much bitterness. Extremely drinkable and rather enjoyable.

Slight grape/raisin and brown sugar on the nose. Orange/brown color, not much head. Spicy sweetness, with some light hop balance. Good carbonation, somewhat heavier bodied, but the alcohol level is not prominent. Fairly quick finish. Decent beer, not terribly memorable though.

Pours a deep chestnut color, one-finger head that fades pretty quickly to a frothy ring. Smells of bran flakes, sweet corn/maple syrup, slightly fruity and some saltiness. Smells kinda like cake with buttercream icing. Sweet syrupy malt tastes a lot like barley really, light toffee and some soy impression from the odd salty finish. No hops to describe Feels fairly light, but smooth and there is that saltiness that seems to stick around and coat the mouth. Nice sipper, probably much better with food.

nice deep red pour with one finger head. Nose is strange, bandaid, nutty malts, fruit but with a wierd spicey chemical overtone. Flavor is plasticy, chemically, hot alcohol, some spice. no balance here for me. there is some fruit hiding under the odd flavors, maybe some chocolate, woodyness as it warms. not horrible but not great...

Cloudy orange color. This is a weird beer, which i can’t decide if I liked or not. It doesn’t taste like a Barley Wine. Maybe it isn’t. The taste is very heavy on the malts and the alcohol is covered well by the rather thick palate.