Barleywine Appreciation Thread (2022)

I'm pretty much a novice in regards to barleywines but they've been on my radar lately. I have some Weyerbacher Blithering Idiot with one in the fridge for Friday. I'd like to get the Tröegs Perpetual Darkness and SN Bigfoot, especially after reading so many good things about the latter.

 

@jmdrpi and the OP, @DIM, this thread and your exchange made me crave my last bottle of this tonight (a 2016 vintage). It was time for this to finally get opened anyways.



I don't discrimminate between the English and American styles and enjoy both (even the barrel aged versions). For me, this has been a long time favorite style and like @Beersnake1, Stone Old Guardian was the first one that got me hooked and going down the path to 'Barley bliss. I too will always snag bottles whenever I find ones I haven't tried yet, especially the barrel aged versions (when I can afford them). It's been a fun journey so far and have even brewed a few batches in the past that turned out pretty well but didn't carbonate very well (that's a topic for a different thread ).

A great style that deserves some love!

 

Awesome picture. Never had the batch that was labeled "Oak Barrel". I know there was a lot of debate at the time what exactly that meant. Did you have any bottles of either of the "Bourbon Barrel" batches? If so, how did they compare? I thought the original 2015 batch was amazing.

 

I also was inspired by this discussion to pull a barleywine out of the cellar tonight, a 2019 bottle of Blithering Idiot. My post in the cellar reviews thread:
https://www.beeradvocate.com/community/threads/cellar-reviews-2022.664094/#post-7427578

 

I feel like a big issue with Barleywines in today’s market is that there are a lot of breweries trying their hand at a style that is very difficult to execute well, and they’re failing at it. So people are getting bad examples of the style and it’s turning them off. It’s at arguably my favorite style of beer when done right; the level of complexity you can attain is crazy, and I love to see the product of breweries like Side Project, Anchorage, Forager, and others who have really shown how amazing this style can be. Below I’ve attached the logo of a festival I went to in early 2020 that was focused around BA Stouts and Barleywines, and I don’t think the lineup there will ever be beaten. I published an Event Recap article about it on PorchDrinking as well as another article on the best Barleywine I’ve ever had, both of which I’ve also linked. Cheers!! #BiL

https://www.porchdrinking.com/articles/2020/02/14/event-recap-the-side-project-invitational/

https://www.porchdrinking.com/articles/2021/12/22/side-project-brewing-m-j-k/

 

I had the 2015 Bourbon Barrel Aged batch as well, totally agree with you (gave it a 4.3) and I see @DIM gave the same batch a 4.59. A few years ago Weyerbacher dropped the ball and didn't release Insanity, the following batch they put Blithering Idiot in Oak Barrels (not Whiskey) and called it Insanity, there was a notable difference, it wasn't the "traditional" Insanity we all came to know over the years. A total disappointment.

 

I may ask...why add those damn bitter hops in the first place

#englishbarleywineislife

 

Surprised no one has mentioned §ucaba. While I do love me some Bigfoot, old or young (5 yr old is best imho), the §ucaba is sublime when it's on. I did vote both because I need both.

 

I state that I voted for the third option because it is truly a style that I love in its many facets, but if this option had not existed I would have voted "English barleywines")
I tasted some Barleywines (on the English style) brewed in Belgium in which common elements emerge only between them, but different from the starting point.
I like to browse through the readings that breweries give starting from a declared style (for example -english barleywine style, of a Swedish brewery, etc.)
It's a classic style, but also with the fact that it lends itself very well to aging in barrels, some new bombs always come out (and obviously also much less good, cloying stuff, which tastes of ethyl alcohol...).
I have several examples in the cellar of mostly Italian bottles (and one of the masters of our school is certainly Bruno Carilli of Birrificio Toccalmatto) no longer produced, but the one that still makes me most curious of all for what it shows as a caption on the label is Hoppin' Frog's NACKED EVIL BARREL AGED, which calls itself "Belgian-style (?) Berley Wine-style Ale".
Unfortunately I'm not at home, otherwise I was sending photos of the dust accumulated in almost 4 years that I have this unique specimen and that sooner or later I will have to find the strength to open.

 

I’ve had Gratitude and the Weyerbachers (don’t think I’ve had Flying Mouflan yet). Are there other barleywine from Pennsylvania I should be on the look out for?

 

There are four "transcendent" beer experiences in my life. The middle two were barleywines: Sucaba and Mother of all Storms. As I recall, both had about ~3-4 years of age on them. Sucaba still has a soft spot in my heart. It's also probably the most abundant bottle in my cellar with the format switch to 12oz.

The MoaS was courtesy of @jzeilinger .

 

They marketed the beer that way because it was made with English and Belgian yeast.

 

This thread was the spark that caused me to have a very indulgent night yesterday. A dangerous thread due to my fondness for barley wines. I started with a 2017 East End Gratitude. There's a lot I like about this beer. The ever evolving packaging is one of the best around. It's bottled... and bottle conditioned. No extraneous barrel treatment. Wonderful head. It's a joy to drink. Tastes of dates. There's some solid bitterness. It's a luxurious beer. I have a vague memory that this was once classified as a strong ale on BA. That memory might be false, but they are more or less two names for the same thing even if style guides might say differently.

 

I followed Gratitude with a 2016 JW Lees Harvest Ale. This is one of my favorite beers in the world. For me, there is no comparable barley wine to this beer. This bottle showed less age than the clearly oxidized 2017 Gratitude. It's a feast of vanilla, caramel and tobacco. The body is thick. The most undervalued aspect of English barley wines are the hops. The herbal hop character in this beer provides critical balance to aid drinkability for a beer of this size.



I followed Harvest with a 2022 Sierra Nevada Bigfoot. This is probably my favorite American barley wine. For such a trend-setting beer, it's interesting in that it still stands out as unique from all of its imitators. I don't think other American barley wines have the same balance of elements as this beer. For me, Bigfoot has less body and more bitterness than most comparable beers. American brewers might have copied it, but they didn't go down as stark a path. For me, this path works. This batch of Bigfoot just hit my area a few days ago. I bought a sixer immediately and 3 of those 6 bottles are already gone. As I said earlier, I don't like to age Bigfoot.

When I transitioned from JW Lees to Sierra Nevada, I left a little Harvest in my glass and poured some Bigfoot into it. Thought I'd see what an even blend of these two distinctive beers would be like. The results tasted like JW Lees Harvest Ale. It's amazing that an extremely aggressive beer like Bigfoot could get so obscured by another barley wine in a blend... but Harvest is an overwhelming beer.

Despite my fondness for these beers, I'm a bit amazed that I made it through all 3 of these beers in one evening without tiring of them.