Red Red Wine
Barreled Souls Brewing Company

This one pours a muddy looking dark brown color, with a small head, and a little bit of lacing.

This smells very tannic, but also slightly oxidized, like old sherry, with oak and vanilla.

I really usually love Barreled Souls, but this doesn’t work for me. The wine barrel character is overbearing and clashes a bit with the barleywine, both adding different and contrasting sweetness. There’s a stale sweetness to the red wine barrel, almost like cheap boxed wine, with some flat and musty notes. There’s a lot of vanilla oddly, some nice oak, and lots of dark fruit and caramel from the barleywine.

This is medium bodied, a bit syrupy, and not very boozy.

This is a rare miss from this usually excellent brewery.

Sampling a cellar temp 500 ml bottle poured into my snifter. Aged in red wine barrels for 12 months and 15 days. The beer pours a clear mahogany. A dense khaki colored head foams up and fades slowly throughout sampling. I do get some light edging on the glass that sticks around .
Aroma is toffee , brown sugar, and some light black peppery booze. Im not really getting any red wine to be honest.
First sip reveals a medium body with very smooth texture and soft, gentle, almost non-existent carbonation. Drinks very easy for the higher ABV. NO hop character on the nose.
The flavor is similar to the nose with rich malty character of brown sugar, toffee and a bit of dark fruit (raisin is what I get).
Never any hop character here and the booze is also well hidden. I dont get really and dry wooden notes nor any red wine bite or tartness. If tasting blind, I would NEVER say red wine barrel treatment.
Beer is a good barleywine, but the barrels dont seem to convey a lot of flavor or aroma in my opinion. Still a solid beer, just not what I anticipated based on label.

Poured at fridge temp. Pours a very dark brown with minimal head.

The nose is quite nutty. A bit surprising. Armagnac, red wine, toffee, banana, and malts.

The taste is super smooth. Again, walnuts are coming through on the taste initially. Followed by soft notes of red wine, caramel, raisins, bread, oak, tannins, and cranberries. Very interesting.