Upstream Barleywine

Brewed by Upstream Brewing Company
Style: Barley Wine
Omaha, Nebraska USA

RBSG 2006 - Grand Tasting. Clear copper body with a minimal off-white head. Aroma has tons of maple syrup, caramel, and molasses. Flavor is very sweet and syrupy with some warm, balancing alcohol. A pleasant nutty character adds a little depth, but not quite as much as I’d like.

Growler... RBSG2006... Clear copper ale with a small, creamy, off-white head. Wonderful aroma releases notes of bourbon, oak, maple syrup, pineapple, vanilla, fuzzy fruit, caramel, mango and honey. Earthy, sweet flavor; light molasses, sour mash, oak and roasted malts. No balance; all alcohol and malty sweetness. Full-bodied and velvety with very light carbonation. Fruity, sweet, bourbony finish. I think this was a sample of Upstream’s new Bourbon Barrel Aged Barley wine, but will hold off until my new friends from Nebraska verify this!

Sampled at RBSG06. Hazy red color with a thin white head. Aroma of caramel and malt. Flavor of sweet caramel malt.

Rumor was that this was a barrel-aged version of this beer that we had at RBSG 06. Not sure myself. Caramel colored with a white head. The aroma is sweet, very sweet, honey, caramel, blackstrap, and alcohol. I got little to no wood in teh aroma. The flavor though was where some vanilla showed up. Overall it is so sweet that it is was hard to pull much else out, other than the alcohol. Full syrupy paalte. Needs to age or have less sugar at the start.

Beer #8 RBSG 06. Medium amber. Huge caramel and molasses aroma, struck me being quite English rather than American. Very, very, very sweet. Loads of alcohol, but smooth alcohol. Thick, thick caramel with a touch of apricot. The sweetness was just too much for me, but I think this could be utterly magnificent after 10 years of age. Rating based on my tendency not to go for overly sweet beers. But would love to see this age.

Clear brown body is headless more or less. The aroma is so intense that my eyes sting when I sniff too hard. Bread pudding, spicey, bready malt, and whiskey-like alcohol. The flavor is a little on the syrupy side. This is definitely a monster of a beer.

Draft at the downtown brewpub 6/27/06: An orange copper brew. right off the bat, I get a cooked raisin aroma and strong syrupy flavor. I had to laugh because the bartender was really trying to disuade drinkers away from this goodness. Thick and sweet, it obviously isn’t for the timid, but I also didn’t think it was that over the top, either.

On tap at the Old Market brewpub. Pours a cloudy amber in color. This is not filtered. Has a yellowy, off-white head. The head subsides rather quickly, but remains atop as a thin coating. The aroma evokes many things: pineapple glaze on a baked ham, brown sugar on your hot oatmeal, pineapple upsidedown cake fresh from the oven. The flavor resounds with an equally amazing bombardment of tastes: green apple lollipops, molasses, caramel fudge, ripe raspberries dipped in semi-sweet chocolate. The lacing is so heavy that it falls down the glass like sludge. This brew would be better served as a topping over vanilla ice cream. Dots of money form over the top of the thin head, like the bubbling La Brea tarpits. This is amazingly more like a fine bourbon than a beer. Treacle! Definitely a strong bolus of treacle! The palate is so very thick that you are saturated after just a couple of ounces. Dustin, a brewer here, tells me that this is 28°P with no sparge at all. He could not remember the IBU’s, but they use a stupid amount of German Magnum hops. Dustin is concerned that the beer has yet to attenuate. He’s afraid that if they bottle it, it will creep upwards to 14-16% ABV in the bottle. Beer grenade! A beer like this from Upstream only proves my point about these guys: They are capable of making GREAT beer when they want to. I just wish they always poured one drinkable beer instead of the boring watery beers so often made here. In my opinion, this is quite simply the best beer that has ever been made in Omaha and one of the top ratings I have ever handed out.