Bearly Barley Wine
Bear Creek Brewing Company

Bearly Barley WineBearly Barley Wine
Beer Geek Stats
From:
Bear Creek Brewing Company
 
Washington, United States
Style:
American Barleywine
ABV:
Not listed
Score:
Needs more ratings
Avg:
3.77 | pDev: 21.22%
Reviews:
6
Ratings:
6
Status:
Retired
Rated:
May 10, 2006
Added:
Jun 04, 2005
Wants:
  0
Gots:
  0
No description / notes.
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Recent ratings and reviews.
Ratings by MrSeth:
Photo of MrSeth
Reviewed by MrSeth from Massachusetts

3.85/5  rDev +2.1%
look: 4 | smell: 4 | taste: 4 | feel: 3.5 | overall: 3.5
First I must express my gratitude to BeerPanther for giving me a bottle of this awesome barleywine, and with it an oportunity to expand my palate for this great style of brew.

Huge head, notable retention which lumps up as it falls in like root beer froth. It has a predictable beer smell right away. The hops and cereal aromas are apparent from a foot away. Closer nosing reveals a much richer, elegant chocolate and molasses candy aroma. Mouthwatering hops reach out from beneath the deep malt layers. The maltiness is huge in the taste as well. Toasty and slightly tart, maple walnut, but not sweet. Quite a sipper! Good for long easy-going evenings.
Sep 25, 2005
More User Ratings:
Photo of RoyalT
Reviewed by RoyalT from Michigan

4.25/5  rDev +12.7%
look: 4.5 | smell: 4.5 | taste: 4 | feel: 4 | overall: 4.5
Appearance – The body is a cloudy, super-dark brown. There’s a decent head that went down slowly.

Smell – Very pungent oaky sherry aroma with a lighter malt and hop backbone.

Taste – This is well put together. The flavors aren’t monstrous, but they’re strong and harmonious. The first sip is like a kiss. The sweet, oak-filled hop bite quickly gives way to a sherry/vermouth concoction. There’s a good balancing malt base that comes next and the finish is dry like a strong cab.

Mouthfeel – Flat and tight. This is medium to full-bodied with a slight sensation of alcohol. The ABV is not on the bottle, but I’m guessing that it’s strong and well-masked.

Drinkability – This is probably one of the smoothest and creamiest Barley Wines that I’ve rated thus far.

Comments – This would be a good one to introduce a friend to the style. I had this from the bottle but the brewery has a brew pub in Redmond, WA, and it must be pretty darn good on-tap.

Update – I cellared a 2001 and popped it just a few days before Christmas, 2004. I have a lot of cellaring experiments that have gone bad, so it’s nice to get a good one like this. Excellent!

The beer has finally opened up (after 3+ years). The fruits are big and juicy and dominated by giant cherries, some liquid raisins, and a strong tobacco flavor. The alcohol has come out of its shell and the malts have been mushed to sugar. Awesome!

The light hops from the uncellared sample are gone. The deep grapes have grown. The finishing sweetness has exploded. The time is right for this Bearly Barley Wine.

Update – I cellared an ’02 and opened it in the spring of 2006, so my previous cellared reviewed was on a 3 year old sample (see above) and this is 4 years old. Oh, how I love to experiment.

This got raunchier as it aged, with plums and tobacco ruling the day. It was most definitely at the end of its cellar life though, so I would recommend aging 3 years only to be on the safe side.
May 10, 2006
Photo of numenor1
Reviewed by numenor1 from North Carolina

4.03/5  rDev +6.9%
look: 4 | smell: 3.5 | taste: 4.5 | feel: 4.5 | overall: 3.5
2002 edition, from my SS

Well this poors a very hazy, opaque lacquered cherry wood color, and we've got head formation! Amazing for a 4 year old beer. Reduces to a collar quickly, oh well. Has that old beer aroma too it, a complete integration of everything, it's hard to pick out. Intense caramel and toffee. I was fully expecting an onslaught of malt sweetness, but this is very restrained. Very hard to characterize, upfront more butter toffee, (like good butter toffee where the butter restrains the sweetness, but i digress), theres a large amount of earthiness and what seems to be nothing else but the remnants of a boatload of greeny hops, restraining the massive maltiness of this, balancing it. Theres raisins and dried cherries drifting about too. Utterly complex and i'm not up to the challenge. Mouthfeel is thick, more so from the very fine bubbled soft carbonation. Alcohol is absolutely absent from the equation, but this is a slow sipper, anyway you look at it.


Seems like the previous reviewer really had an off bottle.
Jan 03, 2006
Photo of czechsaaz
Reviewed by czechsaaz from Washington

2.01/5  rDev -46.7%
look: 3 | smell: 2 | taste: 2 | feel: 2.5 | overall: 1.5
2002 bottling.

Aroma includes huge amounts of fuesal alcohol. Pretty big dose of Phenols too (band-aid type). Underneath all that there's roasty maltiness but it takes some effort to find it. Just a hint of noticeable hop aroma (sort-of expected for something this old)

Ruby Red, Giant thick head (almost foamed over even with careful pouring) pretty cloudy.

First flavor that hits me is sour. Then more alcohol, then some hops. Aftertaste is alcoholic and pretty harsh.

Big bodied with extremely high carbonation.

Yikes...tough to drink. Big but not well put together. Kind of like a homebrew gone wrong.
Nov 09, 2005
Photo of BuckeyeNation
Reviewed by BuckeyeNation from Iowa

4.25/5  rDev +12.7%
look: 4.5 | smell: 4.5 | taste: 4 | feel: 4 | overall: 4.5
Moderately murky dark orange-caramel with a generous infusion of bright cherry skin red noted with backlighting. The cap is gorgeous with a golden light caramel color, a moguls-like surface and enough creamy density to last 'til the cows come home. The lace is arranged in thick, broken sheets with periodic thicker clumps. A huge amount of lace encrusts the glass when it has been emptied of beer.

Either this is a fantastic nose or I just love the smell of barleywines in the morning (perhaps a little of both). I haven't yet run across a beer of this style that has a less than good--at least--aroma. The usual suspects are present: brown sugar, dark butterscotch, boozy cherries and drunken oranges.

A very good barleywine. First the faults, few that they are. It lacks an in-your-face amount of depth and power. I hesitate to call those faults as there's plenty of room in this style for non-Megaton barleywines. That said, it is a stellar example of an approachable, drinkable big beer (I think I just used my closing sentence too early).

It's a little shy on malt for the style, but only slightly. Heavy caramel malty underpinnings support the sweet, fruity and hoppy upper registers of the flavor profile. The hops aren't front and center--as might be expected after 3 years of rest--but they're still an integral part of the overall flavor and stand toe-to-toe with the malt (though they flinch a little). Candied cherry and orange are still noted and their concentrated fruitiness is most welcome.

The body/mouthfeel is a tough call. My usual credo is "the bigger the better", but this one, though it's definitely on the lighter end of the barleywine scale, is so beautifully mannered, smooth and soft that it's hard to find fault. Another example where 3 years of age has done more good than harm. Older and wiser; I should be so lucky.

Bear Creek Bearly Barleywine holds it's own against the better known examples of the style. It may not assault it's drinker with a cacophony of complexity or fusillades of flavor, but it was more than adequate to the task of finding favor with me and continuing the rapid climb of barleywines within my own most-favored styles. More's the pity that this is the last any of us are likely to see of this fine beer and the brewery that produced it. My thanks to the sagacious RoyalT for this little gem.
Jul 14, 2005
Photo of RedDiamond
Reviewed by RedDiamond from Oregon

4.21/5  rDev +11.7%
look: 3 | smell: 4.5 | taste: 4 | feel: 4.5 | overall: 4.5
It’s quite possible that this review will constitute the first, last, one and only review of a Bear Creek beer. The brewery severed all business relations with its former pub last May and moved out of their Redmond location near the end of 2004. They’re rumored to be in Yakima now but no information is forthcoming and their system won’t accept my email inquiries. It would seem they’re out of business.

But I found a solitary bottle of Bear Creek’s 2002 Bearly Barley Wine sitting patiently in a fridge at Bottleworks. After cellaring it for a few months I finally gave in to temptation and served it up. I was greeted with a magnificent aroma alive with honeysuckle, brown sugar, plums and candied fruits. Luscious. The brew was deep crimson with fine sediment adrift throughout. A full-bodied mouthfeel introduced a smooth and well mannered nectar with a time-tempered bitterness that wisely chose to not interfere.

This is (was) a regal, dignified ale that was oh so easy to drink. Though neither the bottle nor the Bear Creek website mentions the ABV, Bearly Barley Wine didn’t come across as overpowering or excessively strong. Fare thee well, Bear Creek. With beers like this you’ll be missed.
Jun 04, 2005
Bearly Barley Wine from Bear Creek Brewing Company
Beer rating: 3.77 out of 5 with 6 ratings