Sprecher Barley Wine Ale

Brewed by Sprecher Brewing Company
Style: Barley Wine
Glendale, Wisconsin USA

Big ass bottle pours clear amber color with a white head. Malty aroma red fruit, not much depth. Malty flavors chocolate, fruit, carmel, pine, and some heat. Light bodied with too much alcohol.

Wax capped bottle. Pour is a dark amber with a nice sized tan head. Aroma is some tart fruit with molasses and a vinegar smell. Flavor is super rich malts and tons of woody smokeyness. Some plum and pear fruit show up on the swallow. Alcohol is there but not overpowering. A tasty barleywine with some excellent qualities.

This one comes on with a beautiful deep orange/amber color, but a rasther thin head. The flavor starts with a rich malty note but quickly moves to a sweeter candied place that would be nice as a side ote but seems a bit much for the main deal. By my reckoning it’s a bit high on sugar and low on alcohol for a barleywine, but still quite tasty.

Better than I expected from Sprecher. This barleywine is sweet rather than loaded with hops. Lots of malt and fruit in the aroma and flavor, as well as some sugar. Kind of like syrup, I think it is much better than its percentile suggests.

Pours a burnt amber with a small head. Nice banana sweetness on the nose with a little bready character as well. The flavor echoes the nose with a nice sweet banana balancing out a slight hoppiness. This was a year old bottle and it was definately better than the score. I was suprised to see the really low scores.

Courtesy of Brewfiend; bottle is about 2 years old. Copper color with a thick head. Sweet smoky aroma with some apple hints. Very sweet malt-laden flavor with a little apple fruitiness. It’s not incredibly complex, but far better than the average rating is showing.

Pours a reddish copper color with almost no head. Unpleasant aroma and flavor of caramel, cardboard and veggies. The body is light to medium with an oily texture and gentle carbonation. This beer seems to have some problems.

From a 1 lt. cobalt blue swing top bottle with a blurb on the back and a 2005 bottling date on the neck tag, sampled at a cooler cellar temperature in a tulip glass. Poured a dark orangey amber with a fluffy, creamy off-white head that settled into a creamy lacing, minimal amount of sticking. Aromas of a nutty peat-like smokiness, a sherry-like fruitiness, sugary, a soft caramel and toffee maltiness, and whiffs of sweet spicy alcohol. Good moderate carbonation and a crisp, creamy smooth medium bodied mouthfeel. Different, but pleasant barley wine taste, the odd thing is peat smokiness instead of a vanilla woodiness, sherry, cherry fruitiness, caramelized white sugary, a soft sweet caramel toffee maltiness, a light spicy hoppiness with a soft lingering bitterness that mingles with the alcohol, the alcohol is warming in the palate, and a dryish fruity, peaty, malty finish. A bit odd, has the familiar Sprecher maltiness, but not bad, worth giving a try if you like barley wines.