Barleywine Appreciation Thread (2023)

I was trained by @DIM and @Beersnake1 for doing mini-tastings!
Speaking of which @DIM and i also had the Town Rum Barrel B-Wine recently and we were both surprised how good that was. i was bummed that my main store in Asheville was out of that when i got the Town BBA version. Hope you enjoy!
Cheers!
Tom

 

What’s your oldest vintage? Mine is a 2022. Just can’t hold onto these things long enough. Making an effort with this though. See you in 5 years

 

Aging doesn’t necessarily help most beers, but sitting on this one for 10 years was worth the wait. It’s rich, complex, and sweet with lots of bourbon and vanilla. Sometime I’ll do a side-by-side between fresh and aged §ucaba, but this bottle aged very nicely. Cheers!

 

Actually I just checked my inventory and I have three bottles, one each from 2014, 2016, and 2018. Obviously not one that I buy every year. Been trying to make a sizable dent in my cellar and finally making some progress.

 

last of the steam powered trains from grimm artisan ales thanks to @Braunmeister_1943 for this one. barleywine aged a year in barrels that previously held cognac. dig the concept.

i already listed a bunch of attributes on the nbw thread so i’ll say this: i liked this quite a lot. barrel could have been a little more intense but that’s ok. seems more english-style than american bw (as listed). i gave it an overall score of 4.34

not a big kinks guy but posting this anyways. less of an endorsement and more of a “this is appropriate due to the name of the beer” type thing. cheers!!

 

Grimm makes some funky stuff! That one I really enjoyed! Cheers!

 

Thought I saw this over you house when the cap came off

 

Wow this is really interesting and tasty. American style (I think, honestly hard to tell), but it’s smoothed out from the barrel aging. Sweet brown sugar, oak, raisins, figs, bourbon, cinnamon (from the port??). One of the most unique barleywines I’ve had! I’ve missed the release every year until now. They actually had a very limited amount of vintage bottles for sale (from 2018 to now) and I was able to score a 2020. Not sure how long I’ll be able to hold onto it but at least the aging is done already (I have a hard time doing it)

 

What do they charge for a 5 year aged beer?

 

Holy crap. I figured it would be way more. You can bet anything that most places would have put it in a wax top bottle and charged at least $45. From Anchorage it would have been $300 and a white rhino horn

 

CW is crazy reasonable. their brewer’s reserve 4pks that hit distribution here in central IL are $16.99 (+tax). that would be the 1-year BW, BBA quad, scotch ale, stout, etc. CW rocks. when i was last there i bought a bomber of their anniversary imperial stout aged in rye whiskey barrels and 2 4pks of the 2-year aged BW and i think it was $50. which is like pennies in craft beer these days.

 

Sounds right. I think the 1-year was $14/pk and it went up a buck a year, then another 1-2 for iced. Just unbeatable on every front.