Giljagaur Nr. 14
Borg Brugghús

 

 

Sep. 2019: Shared 330 ml bottle, 2017 vintage. Hazy brown colour, moderate white head. Nice aroma of molasses, malts, oak, dark dried fruits. Soft mouthfeel. Flavour with the same elements as the aroma.

2019 bottle. White head with lace. Burnt pumpkin orange color.

Hops and malts. Resin, floral, pine, sticky hops, weedy. Caramel, toffee, cereal grains, bread. Grapefruit citrus. Has some American Bw characteristics and some English. Pretty strong, but not boozey.

Bottle: Poured a slight hazy pale copper color ale with a off-white foamy head with good retention and some lacing. Aroma of caramelized malt with light toffee notes is enticing. Taste is a mix of caramelized malt with some toffee notes with a balanced level of residual sugar. Body is about average with godo carbonation with some very light warming alcohol notes. Very enjoyable English style barleywine.

Giljagaur is a hazy, leathery brown barleywine. Head is dense, cream colored, and shows good retention.
Taking a sniff, the first thing I notice is an intense, bready maltiness. It's something like fresh baked bread, a malted milk (heavier on the malt than the milk) and caramel all in one. There's also a quality reminding me of mulling spices combined with oven baked apples. Hints of leather and damp earth add to the overall malt oriented aroma.
On the tongue, Giljagaur is full bodied and intensely malty. It's malty sweet and kind of leathery at the same time. The leather keeps the malt sweetness from becoming overpowering. The flavor of fresh baked bread lightens the mouthfeel a little bit, keeping the mouthfeel from becoming oppressive. Somehwere in there I find the flavor of good quality caramel.
Giljagaur is easily worth a 7.7 out of 10. It's rich and malty as an American barleywine ought to be. My only issue is that this style of beer tends to be all about the malt, lacking the fruit esters and vinous quality of their British counterparts. That being said, this is a very well executed rendition of the American style.

brown orange misty body, tannins of tea; bitter with rooibos herbs, emphatic phenol due to the co2 degree
Purchased at a small concept store Kleine Overstraat

Borg Brugghus 'Giljaguar Nr.14' @ 10.0% served from a 330 ml bottle , 2017 vintage
A-pour is a dirty amber from the bottle to glass with a small beige head leaving a spotty lace along the snifter
S-boozy
T-big , somewhat smooth , malty
MF-mild carbonation , full bodied
Ov-too much cloying to be a decent barleywine
prost LampertLand

Poured from fridge temp. Pours a dark orange with white head. Nose is resin, forest, tropical fruit (papaya, mango), toffee. Taste is really great. Super smooth, with deep toffee notes. Dark fruit, and a bit of pine. Mouthfeel is medium bodied. I really enjoy this barleywine. I consider it a mix of American and English style.

330ml bottle - 2017 version. Spelled 'Gilj Agaur' on my label. Blurry vision indeed.

This beer pours a murky, medium bronzed amber colour, with three fingers of puffy, loosely foamy, and bubbly ecru head, which leaves some splendid Swiss cheese pattern lace around the glass as it evenly subsides.

It smells of bready and doughy caramel malt, biscuity toffee, some mixed pome and citrus fruitiness, faint yeasty notes, and weak earthy, musty, and lit-up floral hop bitters. The taste is gritty and grainy caramel malt, toffee squares, muddled citrus rind, baked apples, more subtle yeastiness, some strange earthy nutty essences, and more leafy, weedy, and piney green hoppiness.

The carbonation is fairly sedate in its ennui-inducing frothiness, the body a decent middleweight, and mostly smooth, as only a touch of that heady alcohol measure makes any sort of ingress here. It finishes off-dry, the mixed malt and boozy frooty essences predominating.

Overall - this is an appreciable enough version of the style, with the hops definitely landing it in the New World camp. Pretty easy to put back, considering the 20-proof alcohol quotient, but I'm not surprised when it comes to this particular brewery, really.

 

 

 

 

Gilj Agaur Barleywine NR. 14

Appearance: Transparent but dark Amber body with Medium bubbles to the frame. Has an off-white head (slightly orange tinted) and with a vigorous pour rises to about half a finger's length and drops after a sip.

Smell: light malts and alcohol scent, has some serious wood notes.

Taste: Descent complex taste, sweet butter scotch with hints of malts which are lightly bitter. Alcohol undertones are pretty heavy, might make you think he beer is stronger than it already is.

Mouth: Medium carbonation and average stickiness. The one thing once you finish your first sip is the heavy wood feel...might make the brew feel slightly dry.

Overall: Good brew, I have taste some better out there...I get spoiled in the USA and granted here in Iceland the craft beer movement is in full effect. Salud!