#barleywines

[beerconspiracy]

Got to try this at @localcantina recently, had a great experience sipping this in good company. #SpiritBeast @jackieosbrewery #barrelaged #blend #barleywines and #stouts /// #beerconnoisseur #beerconspiracy #beerporn #beergeek #beer #craftbeer #instabeer https://www.instagram.com/p/Bo0FYL0AkiI/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=y6ewk96k1a2b

[jollitymagazine]

Tasting Beer Vertically

By: Marty Nachel

    An Upright Purpose for Aging Beer

  Surely you’ve heard or read about well-publicized vertical tastings of special beers. These exclusive events usually draw rabid crowds of beer lovers and exact sizeable fees for the privilege of participating in them.

What sets these tastings apart from regular beer tastings is the “vertical” part of the equation. This means is that a…

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[sheppardsbrew]

CBC Barleywine Festival, International Gruit Day, and Super Bowl Beers

Barleywine Festival

Cambridge Brewing Company had its annual Barleywine Festival yesterday. It was pretty awesome.

To start off with a diatribe, CBC is one of those places that doesn’t get enough attention. I think a lot of that has to do with the brewpub being around for so long, but CBC makes some of the most unique and elaborate beers and hosts a variety of awesome events. Their barrel program is easily the best in Massachusetts. Will and Jay do a great job, but you don’t hear about them as much as you should. You should visit CBC, have some great beer, and some great food.

The Barleywine Festival features several years of CBC Barleywines. If you are unfamiliar with barleywines, here’s a great link from Imbibe Magazine with a little history as well. CBC has two main barleywines called Arquebus and Blunderbuss. The menu featured multiple years of these beers, but they’re not the same beers of different vintages. Each beer is aged in a different type of barrel, some are dry-hopped, and therefore, all are unique. In a way, CBC has a diagonal of these beers.

On the night, I was able to try all but one of the barleywines available. No, I did not order all of them myself; I shared with friends. These were some strong beers and to try all of them would have been dangerous.The stand out to me was the 2009 Blunderbuss. This was aged in a port barrels and had a nice maple syrup nose with a great dissipating coconut aftertaste. I loved both the complexity and the flavors in this beer. Oh, CBC also had a special menu for the event. I was able to have the venison tacos and the s’mores, both of which were phenomenal. I would love to see the tacos become a permanent thing, but as a periodic special, they would also be welcome.

International Gruit Day

Not to talk too much about CBC, but Sunday is International Gruit Day and CBC is going to have a bunch of gruits on. Gruits are an ancient style of beer that were more prevalent before hops become the predominant bittering, aromatic, and preserving ingredient. CBC has some of their own gruits as well as collaborations with Eagle Earth and Mystic. Mystic will also have the collaboration gruit as well as one of their own in their tap room. I will probably be headed to CBC prior to the Super Bowl party that I’m attending.

Super Bowl Beers

The Super Bowl is Sunday and you will want to be prepared. This means beer. While supporting the local team, I would also recommend supporting your local brewery. For me, this means drinking Trillium. While I love Trillium, this is more a result of superstition than anything else. I was drinking Trillium during the two rounds that the Patriots won. I will be headed to Trillium tomorrow to pick up some freshly packaged Congress Street IPA. I’m also interested in picking up more Vicinity and trying Publick House IPA, though that might take a back seat to the Congress. If that’s too much IPA for you, check out the Broken Angel (Strong Belgian Pale) or the Pot & Kettle (Porter).

Here are some other New England beers I suggest you check out.

Massachusetts has some great breweries. I’ve been a big fan of Wormtown for a couple years now and it’s worth it to check out Be Hoppy or Hopulence, Wormtown’s two IPAs, if you can find them. If you can find them is the key here. Anything from Tree House is great. I had a Double Shot Colombia La Primavera last week (Thanks Matt!) and it was phenomenal. Tree House is a truly terrific brewery. I recommend getting there earlier if you are going to the brewery.

Connecticut is a bit overshadowed as there really isn’t much there. It isn’t like Massachusetts (particularly the Eastern part of the state) and there isn’t the hype that there is in Vermont and Maine. However, New England Brewing Company has some of the best hoppy beers that there is, or so I am told. I haven’t had any of their beers, but I’m hoping that changes on Sunday.

You know how I feel about Hill Farmstead. It’s the best brewery in the world (I will talk about these rankings later). If you can get your hands on Heady Topper, Lawson’s, Foley Brothers, or Fiddlehead, more power to you. However, I think the drops are done during the week for the first two and Foley Brothers Fair Maiden may be hard to find.

Portland, Maine has one of the best beer scenes in the country. Leading the way is Allagash who create some crazy and elaborate beers. However, for the purposes of longevity, you really can’t go wrong with a classic like Allagash White. The “new” Portland is led by Bissell Brothers, a hop centric brewery who are churning awesome canned beers. The Substance is a creamy, hoppy pale ale that you can really session, despite the 6.6% alcohol. I believe Lux is the beer that is getting released this weekend (or tomorrow). Austin Street, Banded Horn, and Oxbow are other breweries’ beers you could look out for.

Rhode Island and New Hampshire, don’t think I forgot about you. New Hampshire has classics like Smuttynose that is one of the more established breweries with a wide range of offerings. I personally would check out some of Henniker’s stuff like the Working Man’s Porter. Rhode Island has Grey Sail’s Captain’s Daughter. I’m not sure about the availability but I was able to get some cans last week.

It’s a Celebration...!!!!

So what do you do if the Patriots win? Is there a beer alternative to champagne to celebrate? WHY YES, THERE IS. Enlightenment’s Brut (Biere de Champagne) is the choice here. It is a time intensive, multiple fermented, champagne-like beer. This was one of Enlightenment’s first beers (if not their first). I bought this for New Year’s but was tired and did not feel like wasting such a fine, celebratory beer. You should be able to find this where Enlightenment is sold (like a Craft Beer Cellar or Redstone Liquors type place). You will not be disappointed.

[beerinmybelly]

Brother Adam’s Honey Bragget Ale (Atlantic Brewing Company)

Style: Braggot

ABV: 10.5%

Hops: Pilgrim, Wye Goldings

Malts: Pale, Black, Munich

Yeast: Nottingham, Champagne

Brewer’s Note: “Our bragget is named for Brother Adams, a monk from Buckfast Abbey who is credited with saving the bee industry. Braggets were virtually extinct as a style when we decided to try out our recipe. This type of ale was traditionally brewed in Wales where honey was used to increase the fermentable sugars. Our Brother Adam’s has a warm, rich body coupled with a delicate tawny honey profile, creating an incredibly complex beer. We age our bragget for six months, but you can continue to age this high gravity beer for years to come.”

The beer’s label is ugly in color, and a little strange looking at first look, but as I observe it more and more, I start to like it.  The honeycomb background, and soft honey colors are a nice touch, actually, and the gold foil on top is very classy.  I love the bees depicted on the back of the label.  The font is plain and simple but works nicely.  The cursive for the style of beer, however, is far too cluttered and close, which is too bad.  I wish the coloring the graphic was a little brighter, too. My biggest problem with this label is that the beer is a “barleywine-style braggot” and yet they don’t list a vintage nor a bottled on date anywhere on the label.  How the hell am I supposed to keep track of it lay the bottle down for a few years like the label suggests? Overall, the label is interesting but not my favorite.  I might scrapbook it, but I wouldn’t put it on a shelf.

The beer pours a dark, murky, amber brown, like honey muddled with mud and water. The beer pours with a thin ring of bubbles that fizzle away and appear almost soda-like in quality.  The beer’s body is murky, like fresh honey.  The other side of the glass is indiscernible through the haze, but some light does travel through the beer.  It leaves a thin set of legs on the glass when it washes up against the sides.  On the nose, the beer smells richly of fresh, wildflower honey.  Sticky and rich on the nose, the honey muddles with thick caramel malts, similar to Long Trail’s Triple Bag.  Maple syrup, honey, toffee, and even some chocolate fudge touch upon the nose.

On the tongue, the beer tastes sticky sweet but a little too bitter, with a bit of a bite on the middle of the palate.  Hot booze tingles as the beer travels down the throat, and the finish is a little dry for what I want with just a touch of boozy sweet. On the tongue, the beer is on the heavy side of medium, practically heavy, with a chewy, slightly rough mouthfeel and faint carbonation.  The beer bites at the tongue, oddly enough, which takes away from the rich, honeyed flavors that the beer should possess.  It does, however, gel on the back of the tongue with some syrupy goodness.  In flavor, the beer begins as sweet caramel barley, which turns into fiery alcohol with some interesting spice character and a touch of woodiness on the middle of the palate.  The finish is hot and cloying with fusel notes. Touches of stone fruit and raisins can briefly be felt on the tongue, but really this beer is all about the hot booze on the finish.  The aftertaste finally brings hints of sticky sweet honey to the tongue, where it creates a pool of saliva. As the beer warms it mellows some of its rougher edges, but still hits the palate with too much booze and not enough honey character. Overall, this beer is lacking in sweet, soft honey flavors that I want from it.  I want a sticky thick beer but this just doesn’t quite deliver for me. The smell is rich with honey character but I get none in the taste. I suspect that with time in a cellar, this beer will open up into a rich and unique dessert beer, but it’s a bit of a hot mess fresh.  Complexity in this beer opens up the warmer it is, but it still is a muddled mess on the palate.  If you have a bottle, sit on it and drink it at room temperature.

3.6/5

[beerinmybelly]

Proprietor’s Reserve Series: No. 003 §ucaba/Abacus (Firestone Walker)

Style: Barrel Aged English Barleywine

12.5% ABV

42 IBU’s

OG: 27º Plato

FG: 4.7º Plato

Yeast: House British Ale

Malts: Munton’s Pale, Crisp Maris Otter Pale, Munich, Dark & Light Crystal, Chocolate

Hops: Bittering—Bravo; Late Kettle—East Kent Golding

From: Paso Robles, CA

2013 Vintage

Brewer’s Note: “Big boozy bourbon and American oak aromas combined with soft chocolate malty undertones. Complex malt flavors framed in oak, with hints of dark chocolate, vanilla, tobacco, coconut and just a touch of dark cherry. This is definitely a sipping beer, best served in a brandy snifter. This ale pairs well with dark chocolate and sturdy cheeses.”

I love the classiness of the Firestone Walker labels, and I love how they up that classiness for their bigger beers.  The information provided on the front of the label is hugely helpful, and very conducive to cellaring, which is exactly what you should do with this bottle (note: I’ve never had it before and figured I’d try it before buying one to cellar…).  Sure the label is a little cluttered, but I actually like the text on this bottle a lot more than I like the standard Firestone Walker label text.  My one complaint with the text is that the information regards OG, FG, IBU’s, etc… is a little hard to read, though it does look nice.  This bottle is worthy of scrapbooking, and is certainly worthy of looking at on a shelf, though it would do better in a cellar.  What makes this label/packaging even better, though, is the box that the bottle comes in.  The box is honestly unneeded, but it does help with light pollution, and it just looks classy as fuck, and I really appreciate.  I would keep the box on my shelf too.

The beer pours a dark murky red, and sits in the glass as almost black, but when you put it in the light it glows a gorgeous ruby.  The beer’s body seems clean, but surprisingly full of carbonation bubbles.  The beer pours with a decent sized white head that seems to be turning khaki colored.  It mellows down to a half of a finger’s width as the beer sits in the glass.  It features nice legs of alcohol as you swirl it in the glass, and leaves little dots of thin slippery lacing on the glass wall.

On the nose, the beer smells big and boozy with wonderfully complex notes of plum fruit, toffee, slight raisin and bourbon sweet notes, and even some brown sugar notes.  On the tongue, the beer tastes wonderfully sweet and complex with boozy alcohol and lovely mellow toffee and oak notes.

The beer begins with caramelly malt that moves into toffee, light bourbon and then explodes into a medley of all those flavors, adding coconut, light oak, very faint char, raisins, dates, and  brown sugar.  The finish is a little harsh with booze, but also features a maple syrup sweet taste that travels into the sticky aftertaste.  You can definitely feel this travelling down the back of your throat, but I think with a bit of age it could be beautifully mellowed, and as is I find the flavors wonderfully mellow while still being big and complex.  As it warms up, this beer definitely builds in booziness.

On the mouth, the beer feels thick and chewy, but soft and very mellow almost fluffy with the carbonation, almost syrupy.  Its body sits on the mellower side of heavy.  The mouth is left slightly dry with alcohol and sticky dry saliva.

Overall, I’m definitely a fan of this beer.  This is one of my favorite Barleywines right now, and I would love to find another bottle and set it away for a couple years.  This stuff is thick, boozy, and complex, and definitely a sipper.  You should try this beer.

4.3/5