Burley Barleywine - Dry Hopped
West Sixth Brewing Company

I am absolutely loving the Firkin Thursday events at West Sixth as they commonly use an existing recipe of a favorited beer, but then adding a twist or three. Their newest release celebrates the barleywine style in all its glory. It belongs on cask and it deserves hop infusion.

Its hazy rust color of bronze, brown, and copper offer even lighter carbonation and head character than the standard Burley and still delivers a near-brandy stillness. An early lace foam lace recedes and then prefers a brandy-like appearance of alcohol sheen an the same legging that glosses as the standard version does.

Similar impressions of fruit and malt strike the olfactories as does the regular Burley- with savory and strong impressions but with slightly elevated citrus and tropical notes. Both toffee and sorghum malign with fruity plumb, grape, fig, and cherry that are more of the dried and pitted variety than the plumper or tart examples. Spiced rum and mild earthy-sweet tobacco only add to the intrigue of the ale.

Dessert-like flavors of toffee, coffee crumble, aged fruit, carrot cake all blend into notions of Christmas. The succulent and savory taste of dried fruits- cherries, apples, grapes, plumbs, dates, and raisins all take on a "rum-soaked" character and are more pronounced than in the regular draft version. Freshly muddled tea leaves, light cinnamon, and mild vinousness provides a much needed roundness to relieve the sweetness.

As full bodied as every, its supple carbonation allows the full weight of ale to embrace the taste buds and saturate the tongue with malt sweetness and vinous alcohols. Its lush textures still make the beer march across the palate-making this beer a brandy-like sipper.

I'm really not sure that there's a lot of differences to be appreciated between the standard Burley and the dry hopped, cask conditioned version. But the lower carbonation makes the beer taste and feel more English-like than American-like. Also, the cellar-temperatured warmth allows the taste buds to better key in on flavors. Yet the dry hops add little to the beer feel like its effects were marginal at best. Still, it's a fantastic beer- every bit as good as the original.