Cellar Series: Triple Barrel
Põhjala Brewery & Tap Room

 

Poured into a Fremont small snifter. A 2021 vintage. Pours a very dark mahogany brown, appearing opaque black in the glass with a thin milk chocolate brown film that dissipates to nothing with slight ring around the glass. Aroma of dark toasted malt, dates, raisins, bourbon and bakers chocolate; a bit boozy. Flavor is dark toasted malt, bourbon, raisins, cherry, light stone fruit and woody oak. Medium bodied with light to moderate creaminess and satisfactory carbonation despite near still pour. A deep, dark, bourbon and dark fruit barleywine. This is definitely an English style barleywine with the dominant being dark dried fruit with only mild hints of cherry and light fruit. Complex and rich with moderate sweetness and nice barrel character. Another fine barleywine from Põhjala that has aged well in 2 years.

Bottle at barleywine share. Dark, oily pour, thin beige head settles to ring. Sweet aroma, toffee, malty, dark fruit. taste is caramel, brown sugar, raisins, dates, Creamy feel with a nice warmth.

Served at near room temperature in a snifter. Pours an opaque black-mahogany with a thin, fizzy tan head. Nose on this thing is phenomenal. Candied, rum-soaked fig, molasses, oak barrel, boozy cherry & vanilla, and tobacco.

Taste is sticky-sweet, but not over sweet. All the highlights of the nose come through here with a leathery slide across the palate. The barrel notes are prominent on the finish that fully coats and goes on and on and on...

Overall this is the best Barleywine I’ve ever

A - Pours an inky black with a thin tan head. Light soapy lacing,

S - Aroma is borubon, oak, ripe dark fruits and brown sugar.

T - The taste is chocolate, toffee, raisins, dark cherries, brown sugar, oak, rye spiciness and a nice a warming bourbon finish.

M - Medium body with low carbonation. Syrupy mouthfeel with a slick oily finish.

O - Top notch BBA barleywine.

Opened this beast up February 10, 2023. Bottling date seems to be 07092021. Drinking at room temp, of course. Not quite ink black, but still a very dark pour, with a pretty ephemeral head. Initial smell is wicked sweet, mostly figs and dates with some sort of stone fruit maybe. There's other stuff in there I can't clearly define, but my first thought is something along the lines of concentrated red wine. I can barely detect any booziness. It just seems to glide around my mouth. It's silky and a bit oily, but not super thick. Taste is, first and foremost, sweet, like a lot of malt mixed with some brown sugar and a hint of maple. More subtle stuff is oaky, tobacco, coffee, and whiskey, both rye and bourbon in pretty equal measure. The first hint of bitter is in the aftertaste, just kind of resting on the back of my tongue, kind of like if you bite an acorn. Maybe tannins are more of a bittering agent than hops in this beer. After the first swallow that bitter just kind of hangs around. On the whole, an amazingly complex barleywine I'd love to come back to time and time again. If not the most complex, certainly one of the most complex beers I've ever tried. There's so much to unpack. I'd disagree with the American style Barleywine designation. Most American style Barleywines tend to be an extra malty triple IPA. The only American thing about it is the Bourbon barrel aging. Other than that, it seems more like a big, beautiful, sweet, English style beast of a barleywine.

From the 11.2 oz bottle in a snifter. This monster pours a dark and murky brown with
a faint head of light brown foam that settles to a thin ring with nice legs. Nose of bourbon,
vanilla, oak, vinous sherry, leather, tobacco, dates, and spicy rye whiskey. Flavors surpass the
nose nicely with sherry, toffee, cocoa, tobacco, bourbon, whiskey, spicy rye, oak, vanilla, faint
coffee, cognac, and an array of dark fruits of blackberry, raspberry, and dates. Mouthfeel
is medium full, smooth as silk, lightly slick, coating, warming, faint carbonation, and a sweet
finish.

Overall----WOW.....this is astounding! Tons of flavor and nicely balanced for the ABV.
These brewers should have a much bigger following!
Outside the box but within limits!

Cheers! (Terviseks!)

A - Dark brown pour with light bubbly lacing.

S - Sherry, lightly toasted malt, and coconut.

T - Toasted sherry, cocoa toast, coconut, and a boozy finish.

M - Big viscous medium body with a soft light syrupy texture.

O - Well worth checking out.

Poured out almost black in color, thin caramel colored head on top. The smell of the beer had an earthy char with some sweet dark sugary notes going on in there, nothing too overpowering that stood out but really nice balanced if anything. The taste had the flavors of caramel and chocolate notes, some barrel in there too. The feel of the beer was full bodied and smooth despite the high ABV. Overall it's an impressive beer from a far away land that we don't see too much of here. If they're doing great things I have to have more of it someday!

First Estonian tick!

Pours a stout-like dark brown color with very little opacity. This is very dark for a barleywine. Head...well, there isn't much, just a thin khaki-colored collar around the glass.

The aroma is intense...and insane. Both in a really good way! There's so much going on here - cream, vanilla, tobacco, coconut, dark chocolate, sherry, dark fruits, oak, marshmallow, bourbon, and rye whiskey; holy shit, did I mention bourbon and rye whiskey? There's even a touch of musty, dusty sourness that I'd expect from an old ale. No lie, this offers one of the most assertive and complex aromas I've ever encountered in the beer world.

The flavor profile focuses mainly on the dark fruits, sherry oxidation, rye, and barrel presence. It's not quite as rip-roaring as what the nose suggested, but it is NOT far off. The one thing that hits me is how beautifully elegant the aging process was to this barleywine - the aforementioned dark fruits and sherry are nicely intertwined between the rye-forward profile (both in terms of rye malts and rye whiskey). While it's fairly boozy, it's boozy in a smooth and perfectly integrated fashion that makes some of the fringe nuances seem more expressive. Goddamn, this rocks.

It feels oily and slick on the palate, concealing the alcohol to an extent. It also builds up some residual sweetness, but hey it's 13%, stop trying to chug this. Carbonation is very low, relying on the dryness of both the barrels and the rye to help it down easily enough.

Is it a barleywine? A stout? A strong ale? Though it doesn't really fit neatly into one category, it's so good that I don't care. Hell, it's one of the better beers I've sampled in the past few years. I think it's safe to say that Põhjala is now on my radar...

 

Oh my there is a lot to unpack here. Plenty sweet overall but with more than enough booze and nuance to keep things interesting. Semi-sweet chocolate, molasses, toffee, honey, apple, raisin, port, tobacco, whiskey, charred wood, etc. etc. etc. There is more here, but I'm going to savor the rest rather than parsing the hell out of it. Thankfully, my local has more since idiot me only bought one.

 

Cognac, plum, red jujube on the nose. Leather and green tobacco, rye spice and honey added to the palate. Vinous, crabapple, occasionally even some chocolate. More English than American in style.

Bottle. Very little head. Dark brown color.

Smooth, warming, lots of barrels. Just all around great BW vibes going on here. Raisins, figs, toffee, molasses, cocoa. Also has a slight fruit flavor mixed in, almost strawberry like and apples. Caramel and toffee. Great bourbon, oak, vanilla, rye flavors. The barrels are fantastic. Awesome $11 shelfie.

Bottled 7/9/21; drank 5/15/22 @ the Yarchives.

Brown/black appearance.

An even pour yielded a nice tan head; no lace.

Bourbon, mild leather & faint plum notes in the nose; booze-forward!

Medium thick, sticky mouthfeel.

Bourbon, leather & raspberry flavors; boozy, yes, but pretty tasty too.

I'd have another!

Opaque black, nothing visible even with a back-light. Very short, and short-lived, dark tan head, quickly becoming a ring with a scattering of islets of bubbles and finally a completely still surface.

The aroma is quite strong. No need to even get close. Alcohol. Whiskey. Molasses. Brown sugar. Plums. Vanilla. Rich aroma with many intermingling smells.

The flavors are, as with the aroma, rich and multi-faceted. The alcohol/whiskey is obvious, backed by the flavors previously mentioned in the aroma, most prominently the sweet flavors of brown sugar and vanilla. Also dark fruits of raisin and fig along with plum and molasses. Barrel, including rye barrel. Obviously, as with the aroma, rich and complex. I think the more I sip, the more flavors I can identify to the point that it seems pretentious to keep naming them. The finish is sweet and sticky, getting into the dessert beer territory; with the booziness, it is definitely a sipping beer.

Mouth feel is substantial tending toward thick and syrupy, smooth with some bite from the alcohol.

Overall, an excellent, enjoyable, fabulous beer. I suppose it is classified as an American-style Barley Wine on this site because of how far it strays from the traditional English-style. The American-style Barley Wine is a much broader style, allowing for deviations such as this. It is black, sweet, complex, and boozy.

And awesome.

 

 

Such a tremendous barrel aged barleywine. Not sure about a few odd low ratings here but this is just about as good as it gets, for me, in this style. Quite dark and sticky, very sweet with a hint of bitterness in the finish, all the oxidized Sherry and aged port notes, raisins and booze soaked dates, tobacco, prune etc. a great achievement and the best Pohjala beer to date, in my view.