Cambridge Barrel-Aged Blunderbuss Barleywine

Draft. Pours a light brown amber body with a thin head. Aroma is etoh, dark fruit, some hop character. Flavor is fruity sweet, with a a moderate warming and some bitter hop character. decent.

On tap. Pours dark cherry amber with thin off-white head. Aroma is thick sweet malts and caramel. Taste is sweet brandy and dark fruits with a little oak. A little bitterness in the finish. Strong alcohol. Good, but not great.

draft at the brewpub..... pours a dark amber brown with a mainly off-white head which slowly dimiinished to a milder level towards the edges...aroma of aged dark fruit and toffee like malt with a fair amount of sweet brandy like barrel aging..... flavors of dark fruit and a nice barrel aging charactier but it still remains pretty hot overall. carbonation level was a little high to my llking and the finsh left it somewhat boozy.... i really liked this one and would love to measure it up to ba angel’s share.

On tap at the brewpub. Wicked nose in acacia leaf, bourbon barrel and freshly hewn hemlock timbers. Rich, creamy and inviting. Some long drawn lilac and teak. Nice. Pours a hazed mid-orange amber. Rim in white. A very charred and oaky presentation. Barrel dominates the beer from the get go and adds that Manhattan-like alcohol dryness. Bourbon-dominated fruit character. Almost thin. And some un-ascribable bitterness washes through. Not my favorite. Hot and overwhelmingly bourboned. The beer can’t hold up to the barrel and that’s a sign of failure in my book. Light caramelized sugars and old hops back out. Too much barrel time.

The aroma is rich and vinous. Flavor is smooth and rich, with the alcohol coming thru a little too clearly. Sweet and bourbon-like, with hops in the finish.