Barrel-Aged Barleywine
Machine House Brewery

The look is medium amber, fairly clear, with no head to speak of. The smell is caramel and woody, maybe with some dark fruit. The taste is similar, lots of caramel. and toffee and vanilla. It's noticeably sweeter than I was expecting. It finishes dry and just a little mouth puckering. Fairly tasty, but it wouldn't be in my top tier of English barleywines, not at all.

2023-04-02
500ml bottle served in a tiny stein. Bottled April 2022.

Pours slightly hazy reddish-amber with a smallish head. Smell is lightly oaky, toffee, nuts, but somewhat hampered by the current condition of my schnoz.

Taste is very woody. Fair amount of vanilla, maybe a bit of toffee and nuts. Somewhat oxidized, but comes across more as cask conditioning than a flaw.

Mouthfeel is surprisingly light and super dry. Overall, nice English barleywine.

Poured into a Fremont small snifter. Pours a medium to dark reddish orange with a fizzy, one finger light khaki head that dissipates to nothing fairly quickly, leaving sparse bubbles. Aroma of dry caramel malt, dried plums, dates, faint sherry and oak. Flavor is dry caramel malt, woody oak, dates, sherry soaked raisins; finishes with a hint of vanilla and astringent oak. Medium bodied with light to moderate creaminess. A very dry English style barleywine. Not much biscuit, but some good aged caramel. Fruit notes tend more to dates and raisins than plums. Finish was a little on the astringent side for me; I'm not sure I'd like this aged, although I'm enjoying this oaky, dry take on the style. Interesting.