Weyerbacher Insanity

Brewed by Weyerbacher Brewing Co.
Style: Barley Wine
Easton, Pennsylvania USA

Taste in snifter at Oldsmar Tap House. Amber with flat head. Nutty malt brown sugar port aroma. Brown sugar honey port and fruity flavors with medium alcohol finish. Medium-full body and med carbo. Pretty good. Little too much burn.

Bottle, courtesy Justin. Pours a copper color, with thin lacing and a decent fluffy head. Spicy on the nose hairs. Very tangy alcoholic burn, but delightful. Flavors of candy corn, sweet raspberry, lots of caramel and molasses. Awesome. Bitter finish, medium body, and lovely to sit back and sip and enjoy.

medium copper color. cloudy. smells sweet and rubbery. tastes like dried fruits, raisins, honey, piney. mouth is thick, syrupy. not sure i like it. cant imagine pairing it with food.

Large Bottle - Poured a hazy amber brown with semi off white head, not much carbonation. Sweet barley malt aroma. Flavor was a little sour and bitter. Maybe the combination of bourbon and vanilla with the oaked malts pushed this a little too far. Acrid alcohol after taste lingers.

Pours a reddish amber with large off white head. The aroma is sweet with lots of caramel. The flavor is sweet but the bourbon helps to give it a bit more depth and not get overly sweet. Nice finish.

Aroma has clear notes of bourbon, and some maltiness. The color is beautiful, ruby red and brown, like maple syrup. The carbonation gives it an attractive appearance. I wish I had the blithering Idiot beer to compare to this. This is what a classisc barley wine is suppoosed to be. It has a nice malt sweetness, notes of alcohol. I get a faint flavor of the oak. Like most barley wines, it is reminiscent of a port wine. Finish is sweet, little alcohol on the palate, and the carbonation leaves a lasting impression. Medium mouthfeel. Great beer. I have to make my way out to Easton, PA sometime to visit this place.

Beautiful pour. It’s the color of maple syrup, but with crystalline highlights, and lots of gorgeous swirling bubbles. Aroma of bourbon and sweet malty grain. Huge tastes of vanilla, bourbon, oak, and also a little port wine, with just-sweet-enough caramel malt, and an undercurrent of classic barleywine flavor. Though the mouthfeel is creamy, the alcohol presence is perfect, just sharp enough. Complex, bracing, and delicious.

In the bomber bottle at The Brickskeller. Okay, it’s crazy to drink a bomber of Insanity before getting on a plane, but I blame Dave Alexander for not sharing it with me. Pour is gorgeous amber with a butterscotch hue. Thick off-white yellowish head. Smells like Mrs. Butterworth syrup on hot pancakes. Amazing. Intense sweetness. Very buttery, but in a candy sweet way, not a microwave popcorn way. The alcohol is sneaky. It doesn’t burn on the way down the esophagus, but rather burns the top of your gastric cavity only. Perhaps, if acetone were a foodstuff instead of a solvent, it would taste like this. And I don’t mean that in a negative way. It’s just that strong. Here’s what it is not: it is not fruity. It is not super-hopped (by the discernment of the palate). This simply breaks a lot of BW rules. Of course, I love it. This beer is woefully underappreciated by the non-barleywine worshipping philistines that give it an average rating of 3.7 as of this posting.