Big Bad Barleywine
Fegley's Bethlehem Brew Works

tasted at the brew pub.Presented as a deep red color with slight white head that lasted throughout. Smell is extreme of alcohol. Taste is also overpowering of alcohol and really drowned out the hops and malt. Mouthfeel is good with a strong presence of hops. (It needs to be noted that it was served to me ice cold. I explained to my waitress the proper temperature that a barleywine is to be served at. She took my message back to bosses and she was told that it is served ice cold because that it what people expect (obviously not barley wine drinkers) . I tried to hold the glass in my hand to warm it up but I finally asked her for another glass to transfer it to. After I did this and it warmed up there was a drastic change in the taste , smell and mouthfeel of the product. I almost feel as if I need to do 2 separate reviews of the product, before and after)

Appearance – This one was absolutely gorgeous! It came out of the growler looking rather flat, but then it cascaded up from the bottom and produced a magnificent darkly-tanned head that showed great retention.

The liquid is a dark purple-like brown in color and mesmerizing. It seems to glow and carry on a life of its own. Phenomenal!

Smell – This fella is really tight. Even after warming the bouquet struggled to get out. It has two personalities.

The first one is a very winey malt. It’s red with modest sweets and a hint of dark spicing. The other side of it is a monster hop aroma. The hops are easy to mistake because the malts are so big, but this has some gigantic hopping to it. The hops are very leafy.

Taste – Yeah, this is tight. The malts show a bit more sweetness at the taste, but two years in the cellar would do wonders to open this one up. It’s very “young tasting” with a solid red wine flavor.

The hops are unrelenting in the face of such big malts. They are a mouth full in and of themselves. This actually has the hop profile of an IPA, but it doesn’t taste like one due to the big malts demanded by the BW style.

Mouthfeel – This is full-bodied with some huge bittering notes. The carbonation is spot on and very satisfying. This is a huge accomplishment, especially considering that I reviewed this from a growler that traveled a couple thousand miles.

Drinkability – The more I drank the easier it got. This is another real gem from Bethlehem that was a pleasure to consume.

Comments – A huge BA thanks to ericaweizen for sending me this magnificent Barley Wine that is hopped to the gills. In the end I’d like to see this cellared for a few years, but you can get a sense of its greatness while drinking it young. This BW could probably score a perfect “5” in my book with the right amount of cellaring.

All in all, I am highly impressed with this brewery. They make a killer ESB and APA and produce the best America Blonde Ale that I’ve had to date. Kudos to the Weizens for all the growlers that they’ve sent me!

Tapped, and sampled just 2 days ago. Served in a nice tulip glass. A dark ruddy reddish/brown coloured brew with a nice collar of thick white foam at the top of the glass. The carbonation is soft, and since this brew is quite viscous it is hard to see the tiny bubbles travelling up from the base of the tulip to the collar of foam at the top of the beer. The aromas are very enticing, but not too complex, imo. This one is a bit one-sided with a very sweet boozy maltiness to it. I do smell some interesting sugar-like aromas, molassess perhaps and a subdued hoppiness that seems to come from what my guess is Simcoe hops, in conjunction with Centennials? The taste is more interesting than the aroma leads one to believe, but I still find this one a bit "lacking". This is definately sweet up front and sharply bitter and dry in the finish. The hopping is unique, and whilst there is definately enough bitterness in this BW, the hop flavors are not where i'd like them to be. Than again i'm a fan of bigfoot-style hoppy barleywines, more than I am a fan of sweeter, boozier, English versions. The taste is also a bit spicy, with just a hint of a cinnamon like flavor hitting the back of my tongue. The mouthfeel, whilst coating, is almost cask-like in it's subtle smoothness and this makes the drinkability for this strong ale, very very dangerous. I'm not sure of the abv on this one, but I do know that the fermenter exploded from the dry hopping that was done to this monster. For all the talk of that I really expected some more hop flavor in this brew. Never-the-less, this is a really classy example of a more UK styled barleywine. For a first attempt it shows lots of promise, and with a few months/years of age this can integrate into a real winner.