Brooklyn Monster Ale

Brewed by Brooklyn Brewery
Style: Barley Wine
Brooklyn, New York USA

Bottle. Pour reddish colour with a nice head. Aroma and flavourof spice, fruit, hops and toffee.

Clear red copper with good, creamy tan head / Sweet, malty and bready nose / Medium to full body, creamy, with moderate sweetness and good finish / Flavors of burnt sugar, toffee, grapefruit, and dry hops / Very nice with excellent, hoppy body.

Unfair rating alert! Multiple vintages rated and averaged out. 2005 vintage 12oz bottle, drank 2-8-09. Pours a thick brown orange color. Relatively lifeless as far as carbonation goes at this point. Big dark fruit alcohol aroma, reminiscent of Sherry or Cognac. I’m not so sure I’d describe this as graceful aging. Maybe corked or on Carbon Dioxide, but this tastes heavily oxidized. A drain pour in most circles, this is way past it’s prime. A-2 A-3 F-5 P-1 O-8 2007 vintage, sampled 2-10-09. After the disappointing 2005, this one was ousted from the aging closet and into the fridge. Sweet aroma, with some in your face alcohol laced hops. Still maintains some carbonation, but shows a touch of aging. Malty and syrupy, I really don’t find this to be in the top tiers of Barleywine. Too sweet, there is nothing mellow about this beer. A-5 A-3 F-6 P-3 O-12

Vintage 2005. Hazy with a small disappearing head. Aroma: Dark fruit, cherry, malt, sweetness, alc and some hops. Taste: Sweetness, plum, balanced well by quite a lot of bitterness, Warming alc in the end.

Bottle (2007 vintage). Pours a reddish color, with little head, but a fair amount of carbonation. Weird (and not particularly good) aroma of pumpkin and artificial apple on top of the usual barleywine malts. The flavor is better (especially as it warms up), with a complex blend of malts and fruit flavors (particularly cherry and apple). The aftertaste is a bit metallic. Not bad - gets much better as you drink it.

’08 vintage, bottle into snifter. Pours a clear red amber with a soapy, thin off-white head. Really nice looking beer. Nose is big and hoppy - lots of citrus, some prickly pine, definite boozy heat that comes out with an almost paint thinner quality, and a big rich caramel and toffee sweetness lurking behind everything. Lotta great stuff going on, and you can’t really fault some booziness on a new barleywine. Taste is fairly balanced - up front, you get a nice, rich, caramel and brown sugar sweetness, with a big layer of spicy hops on top. Some maple in there also. The quality of the hops right before the finish is rather muddled and undefined - there’s no real separation between the hops and the malt, just a sharp, tingly, slightly astringent richness. Some rich, overripe fruit emerge as well. Finish is long, with a light bitterness on the roof of the palate and a lot of alcohol warmth. Mouthfeel is sticky, thick, with a very subtle carbonation. A nice beer overall, one I would certainly put in my cellar for awhile to let it really come into its own.

Bottle. The smell is very malty and light sweet. The head is really small and disappears fast. The body is dark red. The taste is very strong, malty and a little bit bitter with a long duration. The body is very strong with nearly no carbonation and quite dry.

Picked up 12-oz bottle from Brewery Creek in Vancouver, BC. Pours a clear copper amber brew with a thin off-white head that quickly dissipates to a ring and spotty lacing. Aroma of caramel malt, some apple and citrus zest. Taste is medium bodied, with flavors of sweet caramel malt, a touch of fruit and some citrus. Finish is slightly more malty than bitter with a sweet caramel aftertaste.