Tasting Notes
Evil Twin Brewing

Mostly clear dark amber brown body, full tan head. Maris Otter the barleywine. The nose is laced with is with big dark fruits, candied nuts, toffee, with mild barley. Taste is highly fruity with sweet jammy dark fruit, big toffee and some caramel sauce, almost a hint of sweeter licorice, malt forward with a barely moderate ending. SO sweet! Malty thinner body with a moderate drying end. I don't know if my tasting notes lived up to the name of this one, but my summary of the notes is this is a sweet and malty barleywine

 

Poured into a Fremont small snifter. Pours medium to dark, ruddy red-orange with a fizzy, but persistent khaki head with solid lacing. Aroma of dry caramel malt, dates, raisins and toffee; somewhat muted, perhaps by the dense head. Flavor is dry caramel and biscuit malt, dates, dark bread crust, raisins and faint apple or pear; subdued. Medium bodied with moderate creaminess and very nice mouth feel; both creamy and well carbonated. For a while, many years ago, there used to be a style of English barleywine that had a lot of biscuit malt character (John Barleycorn from Mad River was my favorite). This seems to have dropped from favor, but was an interesting variation on the theme, more malt than dark/dry fruit. This somewhat reminds me of those, but this is more of a hybrid, with some good English style dark fruit and is more well integrated. At first it seemed a bit tame and understated, but I liked this more and more as the glass emptied. Very drinkable and smooth. Evil Twin seems to be doing mostly one-offs now, but if this ever shows up again, I'll definitely get it.

All of the Barleywines I’ve had from Evil Twin have been pretty damn good, but none have been mind blowing. Will this be the one to change that? Probably not, but it’s fun to speculate. Let’s crack it open and find out what it has to offer

Pours a cloudy medium brown with 3 fingers of frothy beige head that slowly fades to a thin cap and leaves nice lacing

The nose is nicely balanced, very fruit forward with sweeter malty notes to round it out. I’m picking up on aromas of fig, black cherry, blackstrap molasses, red grape, toffee, dark toast, black tea, cacao nib, light tobacco, and biscuit

The taste follows the nose pretty closely and I’m perfectly fine with that. On the front end of the sip I’m tasting molasses, burnt caramel, cacao nib, red grape, dates, smoky tobacco, black cherry, cola, toasted peanut, and dark toast. The swallow brings notes of molasses, burnt caramel, dark toast, black tea, red grape, cocoa powder, raisin, light toffee, and fig

A medium body pairs with gentle carbonation, resulting in a smooth beer. Finishes a tad sticky but dries out over time

Again this isn’t anything remarkable, but it’s probably the best Barleywine I’ve had from them. Progress