Barrel-aged Year Two
Ladd & Lass Brewing

Ladd & Lass Year Two BA English Barleywine, 13% ABV. Pours moderately thick and dark-brown with a ring of light-brown bubbles that left an oily sheen. Aroma is toffee, nuts, dates, and a faint funkiness. Flavor is toffee, dark fruit, faint chocolate, and nuts, moderately sweet, equally bitter, with moderate bourbon burn. Decent mouthfeel, if a touch heavy on carbonation. Overall outstanding.

Poured into a Fremont small snifter. Pours a very dark mahogany brown with little light transmission in the glass and a thin light khaki head that slowly dissipates to patches with slight lacing. Aroma of dry caramel and biscuit malt, raisins, dates and toffee; light, dry grassiness. Flavor is caramel malt, dates, raisins, light molasses, faint nuttiness. Sweet, with a hint of woody oak, but not much bourbon. Medium bodied with moderate creaminess. A moderately sweet, very English style barleywine with great and fairly complex dried fruit and faint barreling notes, although not much of the bourbon shows through; a bit sweet for my taste. Fairly similar to year 1 and a worthy domestic take on the English style. Just bought Year 3 and look forward to trying it next year.

 

This is unique somehow but all the descriptors that immediately come to mind are familiar. There is something of an earthy edge to it. I get lots of toffee, dark fruit, and stone fruit plus tobacco, brown liquor, brown sugar, and coconut. Is there a little roast at the end maybe? The can mentions "other selected barrel aged beer from deep in our cellar" to go along with the base barleywine, it would interesting to know the specifics. There might be some distilled grape juice barrels in the mix? Certainly other styles I think.

Anyway, this is a joy to drink and I'm grateful for the opportunity to try it, thanks so much Ryan!

Poured from 16oz can into my Belvárosi sörfesztivál tulip. Canned 1/6/25, but this was brewed for the L&L 2nd anniversary a year ago and aged for a year before canning.

Appearance: rich super-dark brown hue with a thick finger of tan foam upon pouring. Deep and rich and mysterious … love it.

Smell: very sweet (appropriately), with tons of brown sugar and raisin aromas. Some date and tobacco aromas come through as well; nicely complex. There’s maybe a little bit of an oxidized note, but that’s not unusual in the style.

Taste: rich and sweet, with a deep malt flavor and tons of caramel, date, raisin, brown sugar, and dark cherry flavors. There’s plenty of alcohol heat, too, but the sweetness and richness offset it nicely. An excellent barleywine.

Mouthfeel: big, rich body, but a low carbonation that makes the beer a little syrupy. A little disappointed with the texture — it’s not bad, but it’s not as rich as the rest of the beer.

Overall: texture aside, this beer has a lovely flavor for sippin’. Bonkers sweet and boozy, though — I’m sure I’ll have a headache tomorrow, but it will have been worth it!

2025-03-30
16oz can served in a big snifter. Can does not appear to be dated.

Pours syrupy thick dark honey brown with a small head, not much carbonation. Smell is woody, wet oak, vanilla, toffee.

Taste is really interesting. Something almost rye spicy about it, tons of toffee and sherry notes, lots of nuts and nutty bitterness, molasses and vanilla and caramel and butterscotch...balanced nicely with those woody tannins.

Mouthfeel is thick and rich with a dry texture. This is a really nice beer.