Smuttynose Barleywine Style Ale

Brewed by Smuttynose Brewing Company
Style: Barley Wine
Portsmouth, New Hampshire USA

Smooth, chewy, weighty. Sweet-smelling. Malts were sweet, with notes of chocolate-covered caramel and syrup. Very warming and cozy. Grassy bitterness. Perhaps a little oxidized, but it didn’t bother me so much under all the other weight.

Sampled at the O-Town throwdown. Murky light brown color with tiny off white head. Nice sweet and dark fruit barleywine aroma. The flavor hits first with smooth dates, plums and caramelized malts. As the taste finishes the brew provides a warming sensation. High level of Yummy-ness.

This initially has a great pour, with a amberish tawny kind of apperance from the base to the rim. Then a slightly diminishing frothy head. The aroma is great, I mean really great, lots of hoppy pine spruce qualities, with an almost nutty character that follows through into the flavor. This is where it becomes disappointing. The flavor is very underrated compared to the aroma. It is still got some nice vanilla, maple nutty flavors, but still becomes very bland once it warms. The aroma is still not very typical, with some red apple skins, maraschino cherries, and strangely enough rhubarb tea. The finish is bad though, really astringent, like mouthwash. Bottom line drink this one fast while it is chilled.

Brownish red with a bit of chill haze. Nice malty aroma, with a lot of toffee and caramel. Cola-ish carbonation carries nicely melded flavors of pine, caramel slightly burnt toast (in a good way) to sticky finish.

Slightly hazy, amber/bronze, with good moderate lacing. Notes produced by rich malt/hop combinations, with grapefruit and a smoke-tinged bottom. There is a good zing on the palate that the bitterness generates. Not bad at all.

22oz. Bottle (2007): Medium sweet aroma. Smells of malts, caramel, hops, pine, resin, and some citrus. Poured copper/amber in color with a small beige head that diminished slowly. Cloudy. Full of medium-sized particles. Good lacing. Lightly sweet, lightly bitter flavor. Tastes of malts, caramel, hops, pine, resin, alcohol, and brown sugar. Medium to full body. Thick, syrupy texture. Average carbonation. Resiny hop finish. A nice hoppy barley wine.

I don't know what everyone else has been drinking, but this is a pretty darn good barley wine. Cloudy ruby appearance with a decent lacing. Aroma of cherries, heavy with malts and alcohol. The beer is astrigent at first, but that goes away after warming a bit. Perfect body for a barley wine. Complex flavor - esters of cherries and raisins - caramel and toffee flavors. Some hops in the finish. This will probably age very well.

The beer pours a tralucent burnished copper color, the head majestic in size, creamy and light tan in color, the lace a satiny fine sheet to smother the glass.

At the bow hops, amidships sweet caramel, and at the stern malt, clean and fresh on the poop deck. As we weigh anchors, thickly sweet and balasted by the malt, topside is full. Flying into the wild blue yonder, the hops hit you like a pacific typhoon with the acidity stronger than torpedo juice, also dry as the Tortugas aftertaste, and a Applejack alcohol warming also noticeable. A nice, middle of the road Barleywine, no Double Bastard, but one damn fine Barleywine in its own right. “Semper Fi Mac”!