Victory Old Horizontal

2006 bottle. A quite hoppy aroma, sweet, a lighter malt scent, and light citrus fruits. Pours a darm maroon color with a small short lived tan head that comes down to a soapy rim around the glass. Nice hop texturesin the taste, alcohol is well hidden but you get some bite on the backend, malt is more distinctive in the taste. Some what a mixture of plums, pine needles, grapefruit, and a slight coffee like taste. Pretty decnt stuff. I like the hoppy stuff so this Barley wine is distinctive and right up my all, but not like the other in the style.

Vertical tasting of ’01 - ’05. Ratings are an average of the years.
’01: Carmel color and taste. Rich toffe flavor and mildly sweet. Excellent beer.
’02: Nice toffee and sweet, but some tart fruit in there as well. Just as good as the ’01, maybe better. These two vintages might be some of the best beer I’ve ever tried. Thank you milkmandan.
’03: Hoppy, with less toffee than the previous. Not as good as the older vintages.
’04: Same as the ’03 but more hoppy.
’05: Massive hop increase with some currant flavor. Not as good as the ’04.
The vertical started out strong, but sadly headed down a very steep hill. Would have been a 4.8 if I’d only had the first two vintages.

Not as strong an alcohol flavor as I’d expect from a beer that’s 11% (as the label says). Fairly amber in color, and a nice, not-too-sweet maltyness. The aftertaste has a slight roastyness to it that compliments the sweetness in the next sip. Left a bit to be desired in the mouthfeel, but still excellent.

This barley wine has a strong hops aroma accented with grapefruit. The beer pours an amber brown with a thick orange color and orange tinted head of long duration. A thick creamy flavor, good, complex, changes a bit in the mouth. A bitter punch evens out with chocolaty sweet syrup flavors, some pine and grapefruit flavors and a light saltiness. Creamy on the palate with a honeylike consistency. Very good and warming.

Egggggcellent. Very very complex beer here. Notes of grapefruit, nuts, cranberries, maple, and many more. The alcohol becomes more assertive when the beer warms. All malty for me, but mine was aged a year.

2006 bottle. Transparent dark amber / mahogany. Pretty nice aroma of figs, sherry, and light fruits. Flavor is sweet but with a hoppy finish, and the balance is perfect. Rich, lush flavors that linger on the back of the tongue, mostly caramel, berries, burnt orange, and sherry. Kind of like The Macallan scotch whiskey. Mouthfeel could be better; it just seems too thin. Nonetheless, a great beer, and one of the most reliable barleywines I’ve had.

From a 12oz Bottle, 2006 Vintage. Transparent, ruby amber colored pour with a healthy layer of fine bubbled cream head. Fruity aroma of sherried strawberries and fresh pear flesh dance with some orange zest hops. Some higher alcohols give it a bit of a varnishy, acetone-ish edge, but isn’t dominant enough to get obnoxious. Full bodied, thick mouthfeel, but not to the point of being syrupy. Sweet caramel and toffee flavors start off first on the palate, followed closely by some golden toasted marshmellow. A touch of fresh peaches and cream add some silky light fruity characters just before the hops begin to take over full time. Some bitter high alpha hops round out the finish with a bold, yet balanced finish, leaving tastes of pithy white grapefruit and a mild alchol heat lingering warmly on the palate. Very nice rendition of an American style barleywine; almost like a collision of American and English styles - the malt bill has a lot of English qualities, but the hops are distinctly west coast US. Well done!

12oz bottle poured into sambuca snifter (the snifters were $1.00 each at the spirit haus!) this poured with no head. the palate is light but syrupy... the flavs include the sugary malt, metallic hops and alcohol... the alcohol does not dominate, it only completes the piney flavor of this dank barleywine