El Diablo Barleywine
Triple 7 Restaurant and Brewery

Appearance: Golden red color with a thick, 2cm creamy head served in a brandy sniffer. The beer is cloudy and refracts the light in interesting ways.

Smell: Very sweet and malty aroma with a touch of caramel. Even in a sniffer glass the aroma does not seem to be terribly complex but it is very appealing.

Taste: This beer has an impressive and complex flavor boasting notes of berries and fruit, a roastiness and some candy sugar along with caramel. The ending is great on this beer. When many beers fade at the end, this beer finishes strong. The ending is a velvety mixture of a dry, berry like flavor coupled with a sweet alcohol warmth. You don't taste an overpowering alcohol flavor, just a light touch mixed in with the sweetness. The flavor is supurbly crafted.

Mouthfeel: Very smooth on the palate and well carbonated.

Drinkability: This beer is very drinkable. In fact I think I had 2 or 3 glasses of it that day. The bartender was very liberal with top-offs, which was nice, and this beer was by far my favorite off all the beers I had in Vegas. Well done.

Presentation: Sampled on draft at the main bar located in the Main Street Casino: Triple 7 Brewpub. Served in a small goblet like snifter.

Appearance: Murky dark brown with some dark ruddy flashes. Light tan head was a tight collar at first and it looked great in the Goblet snifter. The head soon rescinded though to a thin halo and then a broken covering but it left some lace.

Nose: Alcohol laden malts and a light aniseed bitterness in the back end. Warming on the nose even.

Taste: Started out a little sweet for me at first, but it seems that the hops need time to coat the tongue and effectively ‘build up’ after a few sips. Subsequent tastes allow the residual hop character on your cheeks to soak and cut through the sweet malts. Bold malty brew that had a terrific smoothness which was its most endearing quality I found. Some liquorice in the finish.

Mouthfeel: Very smooth, a long lasting Barleywine thickness that was supported by a healthy dose of finely attenuated carbonation.

Drinkability: A very nice sipper, even so this was an easy going big ass brew that started to give me a buzz after only a few mouthfuls.

Overall: Tasty stuff and one heck of a way to finish the night. Not sure how long this one will last but it is well worth the coin.

Sampled on tap at the casino and brewpub.

This barley wine poured a clear, coppery red color with creamy, light tan foam that persisted and clung to the glass. The smell was slightly sweet and malty with quite a bit of hops in the nose. Upon first taste, this barley wine was very sweet and malty, but after a few sips the hops balanced this out, and the sweetness was not so obvious. This was a very big and malty brew with a very large amount of hoppiness. The flavor was reminiscent of Sierra Nevada Bigfoot. The mouthfeel was smooth with full body and moderate carbonation. The big malty and hoppy flavors lingered on the palate nicely. This barley wine really grew on me. The first night I arrived at Main St. Station this visit, the bartender was serving me full pints of this beer (it is usually served in a snifter), and I drank two and a half pints (it is a good thing I only had to take the elevator upstairs to my room). Very tasty.