Bottle, from Fin. Thanks mate! Alas for the dreaded clear bottle. (Sure enough, a touch of skunk upon opening.) Pours a deep brown with small tan layer of bubbles. After a little time in the glass, the skunk seems to disipate and there is a very pleasant woody caramel quality. A touch of solventy alcohol notes, like a yeast very not happy to be fermenting this strong. Chewy rustic caramel flavor with a burnt toffee edge. A bit of sugary vanilla. Rather sweet, but the burnt quality takes the edge off the sticky. Quite a bit hotter than a 7% beer really has any need to be, distracting from some otherwise decent flavors. Still a reasonably interesting beer overall, but feels like it could have been much better.

Bottle from Nelson Wines. Mahogany with a thin whitish head. Caramel aroma with a little marzipan. Alcohol is reasonably well hidden, but the malty flavour is subdued and not helped by too short a finish. An ok barley wine, but you can do a lot better than this.

A Mes rate: Bottle during our Sunday night session.
Dark mahogany red with a thin off white head. Aroma of caramel, sweet malt, earth and slight marzipan. Harsh flavour, almost tart, bitter, fairly astringent and with way too much alcohol showing. Palate is lacking and I’m not impressed by the clear bottle either. Next!

Bottle at home ... nice ruby ... rich malt ... sweet rich toffee malts ... juicy smooth ...hides alcohol well.

Bottle from the Dodgi’ Deli’ Cowley Road, had this 21-04-08 Dark Chesnut pour with a rapidly receding tan head. Fruity and malty but a bit pushy on the alcohol front. Very nice beer with quite a decent tang, bit of an earthy quality and surprisingly bitter, this isn’t bad at all and if the alcohol was just a little bit better hidden it would score even more impressively.