Birrificio Pausa Cafè Tosta

Brewed by Birrificio Pausa Cafè
Style: Barley Wine
Saluzzo (TO), Italy

Serve in Snifter

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Bottle @ Triple Rock Sour Sunday, Triple Rock, Berkeley, CA. Pours a slightly hazy amber color with a small off-white head. Has a fruity malty spicy dark fruit and toffee aroma. Fruity malty spicy bready dark fruit flavor with weak yeasty hints. Has a fruity malty spicy bready dark fruit finish.

Bottle shared at beers of the world II. Aroma of orange peel and a citrussy iced tea. Pours hazy brown orange with minimal lacing. Taste is very pleasant with a chocolate covered orange note to it. The malts give it a bitter iced tea finish. I really liked this one. The alcohol is not noticeable at all.

24th January 2013
THE Others tasting. Very hazy amber beer with a tidy pale cream head. Light dry palate with mild carbonation. Dry malt and a trace of chocolate powder. Mild lactose and dried fruits. Dry finish. Drinks well below the 12.5% but it’s slightly left field and was hoping for better from this brewer.

Bottle @ THE Others Tasting. Cheers to Ken (I think) for bringing this along! The pour’s a hazy reddish amber color with a small off-white head. The aroma’s musty red grape, berries, woodland shrub, some dried herb and grass. The taste is mineral, fruit preserve, more bitter unwashed herbs. Grass, some wood. Pretty light body considering the ABV. Overly active carbonation. Overall, not bad. Not a standout.

Sewer water brown with hardly any head. Aroma of rubbing alcohol and hints of toffee. Medium mouth. Very sweet. The cocoa is pretty dominant throughout. Hints of molasses. Some caramel and dark fruits too. Alcohol is pretty hidden despite the aroma.

Bottle at THE others tasting, thanks to Ken. It pours cloudy dark amber/brown with a small off-white head. The nose is over-ripe fruit, oak, caramel and brown bread. The taste is toffee, wood, orange peel, quite sweet, sugar water and faint metal with a sweetish finish. Medium body and moderate carbonation. Smooth and easy drinking, but not much too it really. Certainly hides the alcohol well.

Bottle at The Others Tasting, London - thanks to Ken for never running out of strong beers to share. Poure cloudy amber with a fine, off-white foam head. Rich, sweet brown bread aroma with notes of ripe, leathery fruits. Big sweet flavor with sugary, bready malts, ripe apples, toffee. Full bodied with fine carbonation. Lightly warming finish with yet more rich bread, toffee, ripe berries. Good and pretty drinkable.

Bottle from South Lyndale Liquors (Minneapolis, Minnesota, 29/11/12)
Aroma: Malt, coffee, and chocolate.
Appearance: A hazy brown color with a small off-white head.
Taste: Medium sweetness.
Palate: Medium bodied, sticky texture, a soft carbonation, and a really dry finish.
A decent beer, but really just an average barley wine.

A vigorous pour into my Bruery tulip produces a fat-two-figner thick, lightly brown tinged, dirty tan colored head. The beer is a concentrated brown / amber hue that shows a clear, but heavily sedimented, red-tinged amber hue when held up to the light. The aroma smells sweet and honey like, with a touch of nuttiness and perhaps a suggestion of sherry. Rich, concentrated malt and caramel aromatics, brown bread coated in sweet brown sugar syrup, and a touch of spicy caramelized grain character is also quite noticeable. As the beer warms up more of a warming alcohol note becomes noticeable thought it hides it fairly well for a beer of this strength.

Fairly sweet, definitely viscous, though somewhat light for a beer of this strength. The beer finishes with a light astringency that might be a product of the cocoa. There is a bit of a bitterness here, the beer is also somewhat herbal, with a touch of roast character towards the end, and now there it is, a definite cocoa character, that though light, when noticed really lingers on and perfumes the flavor especially in the long finish. Perhaps a hint of oxidized nuttiness has taken hold here, but it melds well with the toasted malt character, the dark caramelized malt notes, and the slightly bitter cocoa character; all of which serve to accentuate the nut-like character of this beer.

Not bad, definitely tasty, and a bit of a surprise; I had no idea to expect when I opened this, I certainly didn’t expect a 12+% alcohol brew, and I do like the light, lingering influence that the cocoa has in this beer.

Pours a very dark brown with a small head. Has some subtle chocolate notes to the nose, but it has an underlying harshness. It’s also really harsh on the palate, enough so that the taste is masked.