Victory Old Horizontal

Brewed by Victory Brewing Company
Style: Barley Wine
Downingtown, Pennsylvania USA

Bottled 1/6/01. Light brown/red color with a small tan head. Sweet malty aroma with lots of caramel, toffee and dark fruits. Slightly sweet malt flavor that dries a lot on the finish. Caramel and toffee come on strong. Tastes kind of like a liquid candy bar. Full bodied, but in no way cloying. Nearly four years old and has matured beautifully.

Bottled. Dated 12/22/05. Beer is a dark mahogany with a small, frothy, white, totally diminishing head. Odd smelling a BW when it’s 90 degrees outside. The aroma is malty with moderate notes of toasted grain, cookie and caramel; Hoppy with a light note of resin/pine, moderate notes of dried apricot and herb; Yeasty with a light note of dough, trace of cellar; Miscellaneous notes of moderate-to-heavy alcohol, moderate notes of dried stone fruit, raisins oak and vanilla, apple , light note of cinnamon. The flavor is heavily sweet, lightly-to-moderately bitter, lightly-to-moderately acidic with a long, warm, moderately bitter/grippy, lightly sweet finish. Caramely retros. Heavy-to-harsh alcoholic feeling in the mouth, sliding all of the way down the gullet. A bit much to be cozy. The body is full, the texture is velvety and the carbonation is soft.

Vertical tasting at the 2nd Annual Hell With The Lid Off Barley Wine Festival at Kelly’s Bar in East Liberty, Pittsburgh.

2004--Hazy apricot, thin white head. Aroma is the best of the three: malt, spices, sour dough, apple, pear. Flavor is malt, grass, bitter alcohol.

2005--Darker hazy orange ruby, thin white head. Aroma is fainter fruit, malt, grass. Flavor is grass, wheat, pine, malt, alcohol.

2006--Best flavor of the three. Clear amber ruby, thin white head. Aroma is quite faint: fruit (banana), malt. Flavor is banana, grass, wheat, plum.

Overall rating is 3.7

2001 bottle.Beautiful deep garnet-mohagany brew with zippolah for foam.I want to say this is clear as there is no murkiness at all.Nose is sweet malts with lots of fruit overtones.Almost like some alcoholic version of fruit chutney.Rich taste of dried fruits smother in a syrupy creation that has a little bitterness in it to offset the sweetness..The 11% isn’t to noticeable but does start to come more to the forefront of the flavors as it warms.Re-rate. Tasted at Milkmandans. This was simply a womderfully tasty brew with a luscious Creme Brulee caramel flavor

hit a wall with this one after no dinner and a large array of great beers of accelerating ABV - had a few sips and then decided to call it a night and stumble off into the darkness. strangely enough my handwriting is pretty clear. lovely deep mushroom/earthy/malty aroma. flavour is thick beautiful vanilla-malt stuff ruined by nasty cascade attack - by the end of the night i guess i was pretty bored with the american hops. thanx dufffff

Bottle date Nov 21, 2003: This barley wine has been rated pretty highly and I was excited to try it. It certainly lives up to its high scores. Pours Amber/red with a medium head that diminishes quickly to hug the sides of the glass. Great aroma of sweet malt, apples, pears, maple syrup, caramel and raisins. Excellent taste of apples, very sweet and malty at first, but the more I drink of this, the more I can detect the hops, and other flavor of butter, roasted malt, caramel and some slight zesty spiciness. Amazingly smooth on the palate, with very light carbonation and great taste from start to the aftertaste.

glowing orange in color. aroma of citrus, mint, apple, molasses, carmel, and cherry licorice. thick but sort of oily. very sweet. one of the better BW’s I’ve had. good work.

Bottle from theisti. Amber brown color with no head. Caramel and candied orange aroma. Sweet bready nose as well. Wonderful mouthfeel with a great taste of honey, hops, light campfire smoke, figs and sweet malts. Very nice beer that I really enjoyed. Thanks T.