UPDATED: JUL 22, 2020 Pours a bubbly brown w/out a head or much lacing. The aroma is booze & malt. The taste is smooth - caramel, malt, slight alcohol. 10% is well hidden & it goes down easy. Quite nice!

UPDATED: MAY 30, 2019 Sample during Blarney Wine Festival 2019 on 03/16/2019. Murky brownish-amber color with a medium thin tan head that diminishes quickly to an outer ring. Sparse patches of lace. Aroma of roast malt, fruit and caramel. Full-bodied with flavors of caramel malt, dark fruits and mild earthy hops. The finish is fruity with a malty aftertaste. Pretty good overall.

Purchased cellared from Berman's Wines. No date, but bottle looks well-aged. Pours hazy mahogany with nearly non-existent light tan head. Aroma is strong caramel, dried fruit and light roast. Taste is caramel and plum, moving to light roast and buttery notes. Finish is roast. The cellared version is an excellent barley wine.

Bottle from spacecoyote, who’s one extremely generous man. 2010 bottling, so 7 years old at this point, but the group I drank it with liked the age on it. It’s mellowed out a lot, leaving a dominant flavor of raisins / molasses / bread, with a little hint of oxidization that works for the style. There’s still a bit of booze, but this is one delicious barleywine.

Very dark amber to reddish brown in color with little to no head on this beer, a typical barley-wine looking beer. The aroma is loaded with sweet malt extracts, caramel and toffee, a sweet barley-wine that is quite fruity with no alcohol in the aroma which is good. Very heavy and thick flavors to this beer ranging from malt, dark fruits, sugar and some alcohol. The finish was long and enjoyable, dark fruits and raisins with a light bitterness in the finish.

Bottle from a trade with Cunningham. Thanx a lot for this one!!
Bottled 18.06.09 So it is aged for 5 years! Pours murky brown with a very small head. Smell has toffee, chocolate, caramel, raisin and dark fruits. Starts with a strong malt base and massive aromas of dried fruits, toffee and caramel. Middle part has some spicy notes as well as sweet fruits and toffee. Finish is alcoholic warming, including aromas of dried fruits, biscuit, caramel and fruity hop notes. Truly an excellent barley wine!!!

My Bottom Line:
Toasted and caramelized malts are balanced out by bitter hop resins in this classic English-style Barley Wine.

Further Personal Perceptions:
-A veil of foam covers the murky brownish dark red.
-This is still quite bitter after all these years. It must have been intensely bitter early on...
-Oxidation is present but works nicely with the specialty malts and their residual sugars.
-Mild strawberry fruitiness is found underneath (usually a combination of hop geraniol and caramelized sugars).

5-year-old bottle.

Rated on 6-25-2011 (Bottle) This beer forms a small tan head that mostly diminishes, hazy orange body, fizzy, fast rising carbonation, lots of floaties, and no lacing. The aroma is caramel malt, citrus hops, fruity, and alcohol. The taste is sweet, caramel malt, fruity, citrus hops, alcohol, and has a dry finish. The mouthfeel is tingly carbonation and this beer is medium bodied. This beer has a very dry finish and is a sipping beer. It is worth trying.

Bottle aged over 4 years. Pours clear brown with off white head that recedes quickly. Nose of caramel malts, brown sugar, raisins, molasses and a bit of mustiness. Biscuit and caramel malts smoothness and sweetness along with raisin, brown sugar and some mild abv heat on the finish. Great depth and aged superbly

I wouldn’t say I don’t like it, but I probably wouldn’t seek it out again. It’s good, but tastes a little too much like cough syrup for me.