Victory Old Horizontal

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

Strong nose of figs and alcohol, brandy-like. Beautiful ruby-brown color and a low, tight head. Powerful malty taste laced with fruity (dates, black cherries) and spicy (pepper) flavors. Clean, silky palette - man this is smooth. Like a port wine, but better because it is beer. Amazing stuff!

Aaaaaahhhh ... now this is a wondeful beer. The kind where you savor it and just have one, lovingly sipping it. Nice to cozy up with a couple of these and a love one. Excellent barleywine!

I just can’t find a Victory brew that isn’t outstanding. Seductively smooth and delicious. RERATE: The more I have it, the more I love it. This is my desert island beer. RERATE 3/05: Red body, tan head, sweet nose with some hops. I notice that this isn’t as hoppy as it was a couple of years ago. In particular, it doesn’t have that PNW hop bite. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing, though. Nice malts, rich mouthfeel, minimal alcohol presence. A lot more subtle than it was in 2002.

A full course meal in a bottle!

Je, that beer rocks! Terrific grain, malt, alcohol, pepper and chocolate nose. Amber red color with a little layer of head leaving brussels lace. Peppery, rum and figs taste. Smooth, silky. Numbs only the sides of the tongue, but the alcohol is in the background. Unbelieveable how silky this brew is, I want more....more,...more!

Origional Rating: 8/11/2003 :Smells very sweet and citrusy, much like many IPA’s. IT has a fine amber color and a little modest bit of head to it. It has a very smooth taste to the barley malt and only get more smooth when it warms up. The only down side to this in my eyes is that it makes me feel more tired than i should be after such a long day. ReRating: 2.12.2004: Bottle of 11/18/2003. The aroma of this is wonderful, full of strong cherries, caramel, banana, and all sorts of malt sweeetness. The flavor of this is something that ir rarely comprimised. It has the perfect blend of sweetness, hearty malt, and sublt alcohol. (Granted this is an aged bottle, but I had one of my ’02 bottles and it was something out of this world.) Another tasting of the 11.18.03: I really feel wrong for not giving this top honors in my ratings. So I am going to correct that. -9-4-10-4-20- ---Magical find of a sixer of 1.6.01for only $10. Cracked open to a small bit of foam in the bottle. No age signs so far. Yeah, Im expecting a true gem here. Just out of the bottle, aroma is intoxicatingly good. Barley malt is flowing out in a sugary sweet way. A touch of red apples and hay comes with it, as well as cold honey and fresh tilled earth. The pour of this thing is still amazing. It comes out a dark red with a soft layer of foam and trails of bubble feading it. Just holding this up to the side of a sheilded halogen light makes it glow red. Beautiful. So, after 4 and a half years there is no touch of alcohol really noticable. Soft taste, like a camprfire roasted marshmellow it just settles down on the tongue. Malty caramel flavor seeps in all around my mouth. Just fantastic. The hops are still present at the very end, but its just telling me, hey, this still has a shelf life of another 5 years or so. Christ. What a find. What a beer. It just keeps getting better. -10-4-10-5-20-

Pours a fine light tan head on an unclear deep amber/orange body. Sweet and full and very well balanced aroma of fruit, oranges, toffee, nut, prunes and a fine tone of alcohol - excellent! Flavor is just..... WOW!!! Starts with an excellent sweet fruityness, then an extremely well balanced hoppy bitterness kicks in and it all ends in a very fine dryness and a nice and warming bite of alcohol. Notes of prunes, raisins, chocolate, malt and lots of hops. Not as sweet as many other barley wines because of that fine hoppy bitterness. Very smooth and soft. Nothing less than outstanding and definately one of the best beers I have ever had, if not the best........

Bottle. Dark ruby color. Nice head, fruity malty aroma, excellent palate. Bold, malty flavor that is balance perfectly, with what taste like English hops. Perfect barleywine.