Eleven
Double Mountain Brewery & Taproom

Bottle from April of last year. Slight pop on opening, with a bit of smoke. Muddy brown pour. small bubble head. Aroma is malty and sweet, raisins, tobacco. Taste brings sweetness, malty, brown sugar, followed by a slight burn. Woody, earthy, dry. Nice and tasty, could drink this right down, but it's much better to sip and savor. Belated birthday to Double Mountain!

 

2021-05-15
500ml bottle served in a snulip. Bottled On 2018. Gift from a generous BA.

Pours a very dark amber with a pretty big head that collapses to a moderately sized, clumpy cap. Smell is WOOD, and lots of it. Tuning that out a bit, I get some toffee, caramel, nuts, definitely a lot of booze, and maybe a bit of vanilla and raisins.

Taste is really nice. The raisins, toffee, caramel, nuts all come across nicely, meld well, are not an assault -- surprisingly soft. The wood is still there more in the nose than on the palate. Booze is surprisingly well hidden in the flavor.

Mouthfeel is medium, maybe a bit on the thin side for a barrel aged barleywine. Overall, this is a very, very nice beer. Looking at some of the older reviews, maybe the age has done it some good.

 

Poured into a Fremont small snifter. Pours a medium to dark orange brown with a thin, light khaki head that has good retention and lacing. Aroma of caramel malt, vanilla, toffee, dark dried fruit and light oak. Flavor is dry caramel malt, vanilla, oak, mild dark dried fruit and molasses. Finishes a bit hot and harsh. Medium bodied with light creaminess. Eleven smells spot on English barleywine, and the flavor starts out that way too, but the finish is quite dry and woody with a mild wood astringency. Fortunately there is some light residual toffee, but the malt seems to not fully support the flavor in the finish. A decent barleywine, but uneven in the finish.

 

This one pours a dark rusted brown color, with a very small head and not much lacing.

This smells like old stale astringent hops, booze, caramel malt, and harsh bourbon.

This is a strikingly poor attempt at a barrel-aged barleywine. The hop character is much too strong, and gives off a stale bitter and vegetal taste. The bourbon adds a boozy astringency as well, and you can't really enjoy any of the finer malt complexities.

This is light bodied, and not drinkable at all- it was super tough to choke this one down.

I did not enjoy this beer, at all.

Clear, tawny brown body; thin yet lasting head, creamy; frothy sheeting clinging to the glass. Faint suggestions of dark malt; not much else. Slightly roasted grain base with a bit of raw tree nut quality; some low-key caramel presence; a bit boozy. Smooth body; a bit vinous with some balanced residual sugar notes; some alcohol heat.

A decent enough barleywine, definitely skimpy on the aroma and, perhaps, the body, yet otherwise balanced and approachable as a big ABV beer.

500ml bottle - nice Spinal Tap reference here: 'Nigel, this one goes past 11'.

This beer pours a clear, medium bronzed amber colour, with three fingers of puffy, finely foamy, and somewhat bubbly beige head, which leaves some random streaky lace around the glass as it quickly subsides.

It smells of bready and doughy caramel malt, biscuity toffee squares, molasses, muddled domestic citrus rind, a bit of that under the basement stairs mustiness, and faint earthy, leafy, and floral noble hop bitters. The taste is gritty and grainy caramel malt, toffee pudding, baked apples, Toffifee, subtle orange and generic grapefruit citrus peel, a hint of estery yeastiness, some mild vanilla-accented woody notes, and more understated earthy, musty, and musky floral hoppiness.

The carbonation is fairly restrained in its lackadaisical frothiness, the body a solid middleweight, and surprisingly smooth, with a welling airy creaminess as things warm up a bit at this particular juncture. It finishes off-dry, the big malt and fruity essences putting their feet down like the bosses they wanna be.

Overall - this comes across as a rather well-made version of the style, nice and malty, with the barrel treatment applied by a deft hand. The exact 13.2 points of the ol' wowee sauce are likewise expertly integrated, rendering a pleasant, slow sipper on another blustery Spring day.