2012 Mill Street Barley Wine

Overpriced, yes. A turd? Not really...

 

Agreed

 

Actually, they could in this case. It's clearly poor recipe design and inattention to small details like fermentation management that cause this beer to consistently taste like a hot mess. Throw it in a packaging format that adds 200% to the base cost, and in its current state is viewed by folks who understand barleywine as a clever use of style over substance.

If the beer in the expensive bottle delivered, it would be less of an issue.

 

This beer has always sucked, and the pricetag/packaging just adds further insult. Dave is spot on, weak recipe, and there is a hot mess of terrible fermentation going on.

If you like it, good on you, but I challenge you to taste it alongside several other barleywines and tell me how it measures up.

LCBO online pricing (all are 500ml):
St Ambroise Vintage Ale - $5.95
Fullers Vintage Ale - $7.25
Mill St Barleywine - $12.95

One of these things is not like the other...

 

Sorry, should clarify the St Ambroise is just a 12oz bottle, so that would be what $8 for 500ml?

 

Sorry, should clarify the St Ambroise is only 12oz, so an equivalent 500mls worth would be $8.

 

Mark you put up the results from the blind tasting of Barley Wines Buskwakkers is conducting in the new year. Sounds like Grant is sourcing out some of best available.

 

Sounds good, I'll be harassing Grant on the details. I've also got a bunch of barleywines set aside for a private tasting. Just did some private aged RIS and Dark Strong tastings over the last 2 weeks. Doing another Dark Strong tasting in January, most examples will be right around 12 months old. I love doing these kinds of tastings, very easy to pick out the differences and seperate the wheat from the chaff.

 

These are my exact sentiments.

 

These glowing reviews makes me very happy that I grabbed a bottle at lunch today.

Thank goodness I'm heading to good ol Michigan for a beer run tomorrow.