Bass No 1

Brewed by White Shield / Museum (MolsonCoors)
Style: Barley Wine
Burton-on-Trent, England

Serve in Snifter

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UPDATED: JUN 18, 2007 [Bottle from 80’s rating #1000] Pours a deep, beautiful bronze/ruby colour. Incredible aroma, waves of deep, malty complexity. Toffee and treacle are followed by pronounced notes of dried fruits, apricot and figs, also very present but never overwhelming notes of oxidation, redolent of rich sherry(Gonzalez Byass’ Noe springs immediately to mind). The ever-changing nuance is incredible, it noses with liquorice, cigar box, even faint citric notes and the faintest flutter of aged balsamic vinegar acidity. Has a smooth, coating palate, a mild sweetness is balanced with a tickle of acidity and a touch of warming alcohol dryness, some vinous qualities, baked figs. This is an exquisitely complex and intruiging beer, fully deserved of its reputation. A privilege to mark my 1000th rating with this beer.

Bottled (As King’s Ale, thanks goes to GarethYoung for this one!). Murky dark brown colour, not much head. Aroma is oak barrel, alcohol, plum and a lot of dark fruits. Flavour is very wineous mixed with strong oak barrell. Totally lovely. The aftertaste has dark fruits, alcohol and roast in it. Just lovely in my opinion. I like Madeira wines, and this one was actually quite close to one, flavour and aromawise. It was however quite acidic and vinegarish also...Which cuts the points down a bit.

Cask at the Smithfield, Derby, 18/11/1996. Ruby/black with an intense alcohol and sherry aroma with liquorice. Massive taste (too massive!) with malt, sherry (olorosso), industrial alcohol, a decent fruitiness, aged woodiness and a dry-hop character in the finish. Look, I wanted to like this, I really did, but it’s just too overpowering to drink - take 4% off the ABV and it’d be OK. Alright as a historical monument, yes, but as a beer to drink? I don’t think so.

Oxford to Burton-upon-Trent is no short drive, especially when you are new to the whole concept of "round-about" and you set off from Oxford going south instead of north, after a somewhat embarrassing misinterpretation of road signs. (They’ll rent cars to anyone these days!) The Bass Museum Brewery is great. So I hear. Everything was closed when I arrived. And in spite of calling ahead and being assured Bass No. 1 would be on, the Coors employee I spoke to when I got there had never heard of it. "You must mean P2. I’ve never heard of Bass No. 1." (They’ll hire anyone at Coors these days.)

Hrumph.

Undeterred, I found the Museum pub, deep in the bowels of the visitor’s center, and not only was it open, Bass No. 1 was on. And there was much rejoicing.

Served in 1/3 pints, which pleased me very much. A beer like this doesn’t belong in pints. Rich, luminous russet brown with a small but very persistent tan head, lingering with an attractive ring. Wonderfully big soft aromas--plums, figs, cinnamon, fresh baking bread, marzipan, calvados. Flavor is a leathery warm chewy fruit, all soft and round; alcohol is very present, but with no bite or harshness sticking out anywhere. Finishes dry, with just a little earthy, leathery tannin. A rich, smooth beer in a way that is rather challenging to describe: it’s clearly a big, full body beer, but it never feels sticky or cloying.

This really is a fantastic barleywine. Worth the fuss.

UPDATED: JUN 5, 2007 1000th rating and what a beer to get it with. Bottle from what seems the 70’s though not sure. Aroma is deep berry fruits, blueberries, leather, pale sherry, serious agingoak and nutmeg. Taste is malty, nutty, leather, molasses, roasted vanilla, burnt treacle tart. Oh yes. RERATE: Kulminator Bass kings ale 1981. Oustanding and amazing beer worth every point of its perfect 5 rating, very nice to get the proper glass also.

UPDATED: JUL 29, 2009 1. Cask Stillage at the Upper Campfield Market Hall, Manchester 24/01/2002 Dark red coloured and very strong in alcohol. Slightly fruity and wine like. Some bitterness in the warming finish. 2. Cask Handpump at the Fat Cat, Sheffield 15/03/2008 Strong fruity and rich aromas. Dark red coloured very strong in alcohol and fruity with a crisp and slightly bitter warming full malt finish.

UPDATED: JAN 31, 2007 Bass built a brewing museum in Burton on Trent, and in the museum, they built a small 10 bbl brew house, that brews speciality beers with very limited releases. The Barleywine No. 1 is one such beer. This beer is a rare one, even in England. This beer in a word, was incredible. With a beer this stunning, there is no want or need to even try to describe this beer. Some things you just have to taste for yourself to know its greatness. Bass No. 1 is such a beer. Michael Jackson claims it was called No. 1 not because it was the first barleywine ever brewed, but the No. 1 brewhouse was used, when brewing it. Bass was the first brewery to use the term "barleywine", so this beer was the first strong ale/old ale ever to be called a barleywine. It is brewed with 96% pale ale malt, but with an amazing 12 hour boil, the beer was a deep garnet color. The flavors were very intense. When I sampled this beer at a tasting hosted by Michael Jackson, "The Beer Hunter" he made the comment, "for those who are wearing socks, prepare to have them loosend." Incredible rich, sweet malty nose, chewy, sweet malty palate, and a warming, soothing high octane burn. The depth of malt character in this beer was truly wonderful, and its warming, soothing, alcohol burn, made it the ultimate sipping brew. Phenomenal barleywine, it was a honor and a privilage to drink this beer.

UPDATED: FEB 21, 2006 Holy crap this is nice. Big Bitter cocoa and malt with winelike notes and an oily finish hints of wood and leather and a touch of smoke. WOW this is big. They use only two row pale malt that is caramelised in a 12 hour boil.

Gravity @ the Pigs Ear, London , 2003.
Wow what a start to a festival. Imagine this…. two weirdo blokes at long wooden bench, on the other side of the bench are 10-12 even weirder looking fellas and a 150 beers. Everyone is hung over accept the first two weird blokes. These two guys are shakin like leaves, DT, drugs, something… They walk straight over to the section selling ridiculously alcoholic beer. They order the Museum No. 1 Barley Wine and second top shelf ale. One of these guys is me and the other is SilkTork. He’s absolutely licking his lips with excitement drinking this thing. The superlatives are flying left and right and the notepad is struggling to hold it all. What a day what a beer. Crystal clear, rich, smooth and honey brown. Slightly cloudy. The malt and alcohol are blended wonderfully and nothing is disproportioned (quite a feat considering its strength). This is probably the silkiest thing I have ever had. An excellent rate.

UPDATED: JAN 5, 2007 Dec, 2003 Gravity fresh @ Pig’s Ear Festival, East London. Very dark murky brown settles into a mahogany glow. Raisin aroma. Perfect mouthfeel. Staggering flavour. Dark malt - dates, plums, etc. A beautiful balance of sweet and bitter. Wondrous. Long lingering gentle but assertive bitter finish. Everything is here - the sweet dark malt fruit up front, the mix in the middle, and the dry finish. This was one of the two beers I came to Pig’s Ear for. I was slightly uncertain about this one because barley wine is not usually my thing, but this blew my socks off. I was trembling with excitement and pleasure as I drank it. If I didn’t have a job to do sampling another 30 beers I would have stayed on this all day and then been carried out giggling. [4.7]
Dec, 2006 Bottle conditioned as Kings Ale. I opened this as part of my British Wedding celebration. I had brought the bottle earlier in the day and let it settle. I removed the lead cover, and then carefully removed the cork. Yes. The cork was intact and moist. The aroma was very strong. Rich woody port. I carefully poured half a glass. There were some bubbles - but there is dispute if this was evidence of remaining carbonation or simply agitation from the pour. The liquid was honey brown and clear of sediment. I poured two more small glasses, but these were murky, as I’d disturbed the sediment. The beer in my glass was soft honeyed toffee with wood, port, spice, fruit cake, alcohol and an oaky bitterness. In my excitement I wanted others to share, and gave sips of my glass to people who didn’t understand what they were drinking. But those who drank from my glass felt the beer was like port and drinkable. The beer from the other two glasses was like vinegar. As the beer in my glass was diminishing, I topped up from the bottle. Sadly, I topped up with disturbed sediment, and my glass turned to vinegar. I corked the bottle and took the remains home where I let it settle until Christmas. I then opened it again. I had problems removing the cork a second time as it had now dried out. It broke again and again. Eventually I had to scoop out the centre from the remaining quarter in the lower part of the neck, and poke a small hole for the beer to come through. A very careful pour again produced a honey brown clear liquid. Again it tasted of spicy, sweet, toffee port. Quite delightful. Quite, quite delightful. Nothing aggressive. Everything soft and gentle, yet flavoursome and balanced. The sweetness, the spice, the fruit, the toffee, the alcohol, the wood, the bitterness were all in harmony. Mmmm. I poured again, but immediately I could see the colour was tarry, and the aroma was tinged with vinegar. One sip was enough. Yugh! Allowed to settle and then poured carefully, the top of this vintage ale is a trembling pleasure. But a second pour is not possible, and allowing the sediment to intrude on the initial pour could contaminate the glass. Pour as much as you dare, but don’t be too greedy!