Endless Ending
Anchorage Brewing Company

Gorgeous beer, with decent head production and retention despite the monster ABV, blend, and barrel aging.

This aroma is on par with any barrel aged beast. A complex blend of bourbon, oak, and cognac, strong toffee and caramel, cherry, molasses, leather, bark, and the slightest touch of musty oxidation. Smells hot - but, at 15.5%, if it's not hot, then I'm broken.

Surprisingly sweet up front - in a dessert wine kind of way, with rich notes of grape and cherry standing out stronger than notes of brown sugar, toffee, and honey. Drinks like a dessert wine, with accents of barleywine and stout - instead of a blend of a barleywine and stout, if that makes sense. In other words: it's unlike anything you could have anticipated, and it's really, really damn good. Long, lip-smacking finish, with notes of vanilla, brown sugar, and tannins.

This is a big beer ... but 15.5% big? Wow, it is such an easy sipper, it's pretty unreal. This is right up there with the best big beers from The Bruery, and I'd argue possibly even better than Firestone Walker's anniversary blends.

 

Pours a very dark mahogany brown, appearing opaque in the glass with a thin khaki head that dissipates to sparse patches with slight lacing. Aroma of dark toasted and dry carmel malt, toffee, dates, well dried plums and light vanilla. Flavor of dry caramel and dark malts, caramel, dates, raisins, dried plums, hints of lighter fruit and corn syrup. Medium bodied with light to moderate creaminess. One of the older bottles in the back of the beer fridge, waiting for a special day, which happens to be today, for no special reasaon. A big sweet strong ale with lots of caramel malt and dried dark fruit. The stout portion seems to have been almots completely subsumed into the barleywine component. This now has 6 years on it and has a lot of the classic overaged barleywine character of increased sweetness and mellowing of the fruit flavors. The big ABV is nicely covered. A good, rich blended ale with lots of flavor; a bit sweet now for my taste but enjoyable. Another beer I wished I had tasted earlier, but quality strong ales like these are great survivors. At the time I bought this, it was one of the most expensive small bottles I had ever purchased, but in retrospect, Anchorage really got into boutique pricing and this was a bargain at the time. I'm drinking a fading, but pleasant legend.

 

absurd bottle here, people freaked out about this when it came out, thought i had missed it, homie shared it last night out of left field, amazing generosity, so good to have beer friends! this is a cool blend, i feel like in my experience with stout and barleywine together, the stout always takes over, but this is so unique to me because it seems to be more barleywine forward, sweet and long boiled and malty with the roast and the body of the stout accenting it rather than trampling it, really nice ratio, whatever it is, and all the oak is very unifying, a couple of all time beers put together for this, very cool, and super heady art, sexy with the white wax, these guys just rule. very dark in the glass but not quite black, super viscous texture, even syrupy, with more head than anticipated, cool to have some life to it, keeps is moving, but barely. the aroma on this is awesome, tons of oak, bourbon, barrel char, and a lot of long boiled malt richness from the barleywine element, nuances of graham cracker, chestnut, english toffee, cognac, and red apple, and then the stout which hints at hazelnut, chocolate syrup, and black coffee, a charcoal thing in the mix, some brown sugar sweetness, a lot of vanilla character from the oak, and enough alcohol to let me know this is a monster, warm the whole way. impressively dynamic in the flavor, through the obvious booze and sweetness, its a lot of earthy grain, even a spicy rye type note to it, which im not even sure is in this barleywine, but it presents like that to me, time has smoothed this out a lot too i suspect, milk and dark chocolate, light smoke, good whiskey, faint raisin, peat, and maple, just a hint of oxidation, not unflattering in this style. its palate coating, all over my teeth, and feels thick and slick going down. great complexity to this, i love that the barleywine is still the lead dog here, way cool. really fun brew, sick to get to share it with friends like i did, and to be included in such a bottle. anchorage is one of the kings of this sort of thing, and this was every bit as special as anticipated!

A thousand thanks to snaotheus for this phenomenal gem.
Pours with a darkness straight out of the abyss. Deep and glossy like a black mahogany guitar. Cocoa colored head tops it off and hangs around for a spell. Nearly a finger in height at first, tapering off to a thin filmy cap. Thin lacing. Gorgeous.
Nose is generous and varied. I would be content to sniff this for hours. As anticipated, caramel, toffee, and Bourbon notes abound. But there is a lot more going on here. I pick up dates and hints of something warm and slightly fruity in it's sweetness, like Cognac or apple brandy.
Flavor is a true smorgasbord: Bourbon, toffee, slightly burnt brown sugar, and much of the flavors I pick up from a solid 20 year Tawny Port: caramel, dates, figs, and a nuanced nuttiness. But still get some of the fruitiness of a younger port. I really feel that the barleywine was assertive here and did not allow itself to be overshadowed by the imperial stout in the blend. She is sweet yet complex.
Mouthfeel is on the lighter side of chewy, almost soft in the swallow but with some gentle heat. Amazing sipper.
A glorious hour of my life.

 

A - Dark brown pour with light lacing and no carbonation.

S - Dark fruit, toasted olbrown sugar, Bourbon, light oak, and raisins.

T - Raisins, toasted brown sugar, dates, big molasses presence, Bourbon, leather, and slight warming on the way down.

M - Big body that's silky and velvety with a somewhat wet finish.

O - For such a high ABV, it's well hidden. Slight warming, but not much. Nice on the flavor profile.

 

 

 

375 mL bottle. Pours black. Smells of lots of bourbon, heavy roasted malt, alcohol. Tastes quite sweet. Bourbon, brown sugar, some dark fruits. Heavy, sweet, boozy. Missing the roasted malt that I get in the nose, but it's still tasty.

 

Bottle in trade courtesy of davidtarnow
L: black with creamy brown head.
S: Fig, brown sugar, caramel & vanilla.
T: Caramel, raisin/figs from the barleywine, with chocolate and vanilla. Brown sugar sweetness.
M: Soft mouthfeel, a little thin.
O: I heard that this was the inspiration for “For Gabe” and that intrigued me. Though I haven’t had that beer, I was definitely expecting more.
It’s a great blend, but being hyper critical it is a little too sweet and thin for my palate.
On a side note I generally haven’t loved bw/stout blends as much as fellow beer enthusiasts I know.

 

 

 

A: Pours pitch black with slight heft/thickness to it that forms a nice rich brown head.
S: Picking up notes of BA barleywine with hints of red wine, caramel and vanilla.
T: Caramel fig notes dominate from the barleywine, with hints of chocolate and vanilla...maybe a tad sweet.
M: Pleasant mouthfeel, soft/creamy with just enough thickness.
O: I have really enjoyed this release. I have a few more that I'll keep stored...see if some of the sweetness dissipates.