Oak Aged Bacchanal
Burns Family Artisan Ales

a solid and enormous barleywine here, cool how many strong ales these guys have working in here, and even cooler that they had the oak aged and the straight up version on tap together, after trying and liking this one so much, i wish i tried the other one too, but the alcohol strength of some of these was starting to get to me. a nice deep chestnut to mahogany color to this and a striking white head on it, fading batch to patches before too long, but an awesome nose is captured by a short pour into a big glass, booziness meets baked long boiled bready malts, slightly english here but without the yeast factor, some toffee and some raisin, not overly sweet, and a light lumber and pine note from the hops. the taste matches up the nose really consistently, with plenty of grain depth and alcohol sting, as well as subtle notes of cola, bran muffin, dried cherry, new oak, and high alpha hops. not overly complex, and very smooth to drink on, a nice sipper, and it warms up well. its harder than it sounds like it would be to make a great barleywine, so nicely done here. this was, objectively speaking, the best beer we had when we visited this weekend!