Orogenesis: Garnet
Great Basin Brewing Co.

Hard pressed to find anything that tastes worse. If Robutussin Had a chocolate raspberry flavor this would be it. Still trying to grasp what I just endured. Couldn’t find my sink fast enough.

$ 14.70 (Including shipping)/capped bomber ($ 0.668/oz) from Tavour, Seattle, WA.
Undated bottle. Stored at 42 degrees prior to consumption and served at 58 degrees in a hand-washed and hand-dried Jester King snifter.
Appearance – 4.
Body – Dark amber, opaque, some effervescence. When held to the light, there is penetration only at the meniscus.
Head – Large (Maximum four cm, controlled center pour), tan, medium density with rocks, average retention time, diminishing to a three mm ring fed by effervescence and a thin partial layer.
Lacing – None.
First pour – Medium amber, clear.
Aroma – 3.5 – Weak, blackberries.
Flavor – 2.75 - Begins sweet with entirely too much blackberry, almost as strong (and as viscous) as blackberry pancake syrup. Neither malt nor alcohol are noticeable, nor is any trace of oak detected. No hops, no diacetyl, no dimethylsulfide. Very unbalanced and atypical for the style. No gastric warming follows.
Palate – 3 – Medium to full, syrupy, soft carbonation.
Impression and summation – 3 – The darkness and clarity as shown by the first pour are untypical for a barley wine and I find them more intriguing than irritating. The aroma, while atypical for barley wines, does at least put forth the aroma of one of the main ingredients. The flavor is killer but not in a good way – more like the Manson family than an average barley wine. A bit of oak-based tannic acid would have been nice to cut the cloying sweetness. Perhaps a bit of malt and/or alcohol flavor to legitimately claim that it’s a barley wine style would also have been useful. While the palate was much syrupier than most barley-wines, at least it was not off-putting. Overall, I feel that this brew might be helped by aging – I still have another bottle so away it goes for a year or two.