Dad of Son of Frog
North Fork Brewing

Poured into a Fremont small snifter. Pours a dark reddish orange with a one finger khaki head with great retention and solid lacing. Aroma of dry caramel malt, rye whiskey, plums, raisins, dates and toffee. Flavor is deep caramel malt, toffee, dates, dried plums, raisins, toffee, whiskey and a light rye bite; mild hop bitterness in the finish. Medium bodied with moderate creaminess. An excellent English barleywine hitting all the notes I hops for: great caramel malt and a nice mixture of dried fruit as well as top notch rye whiskey barrel character that has fine rye grain mild tartness and flavor. The barrel is especially well done; clear in the flavor, but not overwhelming the other flavors. Balanced and flavorful. One of the better barleywines I've had in the last year and probably the best from North Fork. They had a pretty nice barreled big ale line up, but his takes it up a notch.,

bottle into glass
Moderate amount of ivory head. Deep auburn/caramel with a touch of dark orange for the look. Rich, sweet, floral and spiced caramel like aroma. Again, like the aroma, rich deeply caramelized, medium dark roasted malt with the rye barrels supplying a soft edge of very slight whiskey and a bit of the barrel, for the taste. Before this bottle, had this on tap at the barrel house in Bellingham and there seemed to be less of the whiskey barrel influence on the taste. Both takes are basically equal, though I would favor the tap version because those Golding hops are able to shine in the foreground of the taste.