9505
New Image Brewing Company

This one pours a basically black color, almost like a stout, with a small head, and no lacing.

This smells like cedar, cinnamon, vanilla, maple syrup, and caramel.

There’s some interesting ideas here, but the combination of how syrupy sweet this is with the heavy duty woodsy spice of the amburance just makes this a bit of a slog. New Image stouts and barleywines tend to trend just huge, messy, and syrupy, and this is no exception. Despite that, the amburana still pokes through, adding an intense almost cinnamon candle like spice. It’s all a bit overwhelming.

This is a very slow sipper. As it gets warmer, the amburana spicy bitterness gets more intense, and it honestly gets somewhat unpleasant for that reason.

I’ve enjoyed other New Image beers much more than this – this was just too intense and too sloppy.

 

Pours a dark brown, verging into black, color with a quarter finger of tan head that went away almost immediately.

Aroma is caramel, maple, raisin, cinnamon, some toffee, some apple, brown sugar, oak tannin, slight nutmeg, vanilla, fig, bourbon. The amburana wood takes what already smells like a great barrel aged barleywine and makes it quite interesting.

Taste echoes the aroma. Significant cinnamon, slight nutmeg, and graham cracker vibes from the amburana wood meld seamlessly into the barrel aged barleywine qualities, which bring maple, brown sugar, caramel, raisin, fig, slight prune, caramelized apples, vanillin, charred oak, woodiness, bourbon spirit. Reminiscent of many sweet dishes, such as bread pudding, apple pie, and cinnamon roll with caramelized apples. If cinnamon was just added to this and it had this level of quality, that would be one thing, but the fact this gets all of its character from the base beer and different wood makes this much more impressive.

High medium to low full body. Mild carbonation. Slick, sticky, oily. It's sweet as expected, but does dry out nicely on the finish thanks to the wood tannins and bourbon spirit.

This is a very impressive beer. The barrel aged barleywine in itself is high quality and enjoyable, but the amburana wood treatment adds a big layer of complexity to an already complex beer. I can see why this won silver for the barrel aged barleywine category at FOBAB. Fantastic stuff.

fobab 2022. The more Amburana, the better.

Dark brown pour, no head. Loses points for absurd wax on the bottle! Big wood, cinnamon, caramel, dark fruit, and barley lead the potent boozy bourbon backed nose. Taste has the bourbon barrel taking over more, very warm cutting through the amburana wood flavors, barley and caramel malt still strong base though. Feel is very warm yet surprisingly smooth, massive feel for style, wood is shaping but not aggressive

Pours a dark brown-black color. Completely opaque. No head whatsoever. Aroma has notes of maple, brown sugar, cinnamon, fresh cut wood, vanilla, and some bourbon. Really interesting aroma - I would almost guess there was added cinnamon, but I can't find anything saying thats the case.

Taste follows the nose with notes of oak, bourbon, vanilla, cinnamon, maple, brown sugar, spices, and some dark fruit notes. Its hot, a bit spicy and warming. The barrel is well integrated. I am getting some definite cinnamon on the flavor profile - again, they must have added it to this beer. that being said, it works, and it is quite good. Feel is medium bodied, smooth, but pretty hot. Mild carbonation.

Overall it's a nice barleywine. I enjoyed it.