Southern Tier Back Burner

reeks of fresh and an almost roasted character of pure hops. nice and dark color which is echoed in the finish, brimming with caramel and caramelized fruits. top of my mouth buzzes from the booze. just as the hops dominate the nose, the flavor is filled with boozy malt. the integue increases as the brew warms, and i too warm...feeling like even my body temperature has risen 10 degrees, i feel quite flushed. ive had stronger beers (and stronger barley wines) but this one is liquor filled. a bit off putting, but its par for the course for the style, and still not entirely unpleasant. i judge a good american barley wine by asking myself if it does something -- anything -- to set itself apart from just being an IIPA. the dark frutiness (dubbel-like almost) and ruthlessly upfront booze does well to identify itself as just that, and i am pleased

Dark orange hued brown pour with a tan medium sized head. The aroma is strong hops, some citrus and floral highlights, some molasses and sweetness. This beer does not hide it’s high alcohol content. Very dry and full bodied. Nice complexity. The finish is a bit sloppy with some syrupy after taste. Very enjoyable beer.

Clear brown pour with a red tint and a white head. Lots of piny dry hops on the aroma with a some raisins and molasses. A touch of alcohol as well. Malty caramel flavor. Very sweet with chocolate and a bitter finish. Lots of raisins and lasting bitter aftertaste.

Bottle purchased at Sam’s in Clybourn. Appearance is a dark amber hue, thin layer of off-white head dissipates, sticky lacing. Smell is dominated by hops [floral, grassy, citrus], sweet brown sugar, toffee, dark fruits, and alcohol. Taste is initially caramel malts and alcohol, transitions to pepper and bitter pine hops, then comes dark fruits and toffee, finishes sweet and pepper spicy. Mouthfeel is medium/full-bodied, thick and chewy texture, prickly carbonation. Drinkability is fair, but the alcohol presence and pepper distracts from the overall taste profile, this is a super-hoppy barleywine, slightly unbalanced but decent overall.

A clean deep mahogany body; thick beige foam is fat and sticky. Unadventurous toffee and blood orange nose; rich and balanced, if typical. Salt and sweat lacquering pungency on the malts, and there’s almost a tomato-like acidity in that saltiness, as it begins to lean toward vinous sweetness; fleshy cherries, raisins, and plums. A distinctly cellared type of wooden-citrus hop impartation, which provides a comfortable bitterness; in tandem with well-built caramel malts the distant citrus colors paint a decadent picture of dried apricots slathered in dessert, and it’s a great representation of hops in a barleywine. This bottle’s a few months old, though, and this characteristic would probably have been a bit harsh when completely fresh.

Flavor has retained a bit of the acrid metallic character of a fresh high alcohol high hop example. But it loosens itself up really quickly. Rich malts wait beneath. Toffee, wildflower honey, sweet black tea, and seared crusty sugars. Hops are lively but not brash. Soft apricots, flowers, cantaloupe, and mandarin oranges. The cookie characteristics of the malts are gooey and decadent, while the hop characteristics are vibrant but quiet enough only to complement, but alcohol increasingly, consistently, upends the balance. Tilting it back toward metallics and perfume-like hotness; it actually burns a bit toward the end, which is wholly unfortunate considering that it seemed at first to be so surprisingly drinkable. Meanwhile the sweetness is gathering a slick sheen of sugary citrus tea.

Full palate is sharp and hot, with a brisk but syrupy texture. It peters out into plainness at the finish, which is primarily sterilizing, while showing flavors of vodka, toffee, and extract vanilla. This one really shifted course at it warmed, into the booze, and away from the unassuming nuances that made it blandly pleasurable in the beginning. Not unexpected, given this brewery’s reliance on alcohol, but also somewhat disappointing, given that it might have been much better, and probably would have been had I had the patience to wait another six months or so. No sleep lost, though.