Boulder Beer Killer Penguin Barleywine

Brewed by Boulder Beer Company
Style: Barley Wine
Boulder, Colorado USA

Happy to discover this loaded with hops and wonderful sweet malt. Fairly simple build with a strong toffee and molasses component, roasted chocolate and light coffee notes. Hops jump out with a good floral presence with moderate upfront pine and a grassy note. Light fruit notes with some moderate citrus presence.

Very thin in body. Tastes more like a poorly crafted IPA than anything. Has an off-metallic finish. The aroma has some promise, but not overly prominent. More malt would really help this beer out. Actually, more of everything- except water.

2006 Bomber via BeerandBlues2 in trade. Pours a medium tea brwon with a ruby heart. Head is minimal and realy only rings the glass. The damn wax was a mother to get off the bottle, looks like they had it at just the right temp so they didn’t have to double dip it. Nose is all sweet malts and whisps of hops. The body is full and tingles lightly of hops around the edges. It finishes abrubtly with a ephemeral aftertaste of whole hops and spices. The bottle is pretty busy and attempts to hype up this average barleywine. Good on this moderatly cold evening. thanks again to B&BL2!

Pours a nice amber with a medium sized head. Decent hoppy aroma, some caramel as well. Mellow flavor, some sweetness.

Waxy cover. A decent barleywine, but a little light for a barley wine. Light in color and taste, but not bad.

Pours a ruby/copper color with a large head, that reduces itself to a lasting ring o’ foam fairly quickly. Aroma is of sugar, biscuits, butter, pears, and alcohol. The malt flavors blend pretty well, and tastes of some caramel and toffee, but there’s also some pear and citrus/bitter hop flavor. I taste a bit of that booziness as well. Pretty hot from the alcohol. Finishes with some dark/dried fruit flavors, some toast and a slightly off-putting Pinesol-like hop finish. Like others said, this is a bit light bodied for a barleywine. Would be better labelled as winter warmer, with less alcohol. Due to the lighter body, this beer can’t hide its heat which makes the booziness out of place. Pretty good creaminess though. A decent beer.

Shared this with JMerritt prior to 2009 Peoria International Beer Fest. Pours a ruby red color with a thin, filmy, off-white head and contains low carbonation. Flavor is very sweet of malt sugars, lending to some nice caramel notes, modest citrus hops and a light grassy middle but the hops as a whole has a very tongue numbing characteristic. The beer has a distinctive alcohol presence but not so much so that it inhibits the beers flavors. This beer has a very dense body and works well to uphold the flavors. Overall a great beer and one I highly recommend.

Found this to be absolutely outstanding. Maybe even better than my rating shows.. Great roastiness to compliment a fantastic nutty aroma and flavor. Huge malt. Extremely enjoyable.