Fish Tale Leviathan Barleywine (Barrel Aged)

Formerly brewed at Fish Brewing Company/Leavenworth Beers
Style: Barley Wine
Olympia, Washington USA

Batch #3 from Nov. 2001 -- Thanks for this one The_Beer_God! Awesome red-brown body. Excellent aroma consisting of fruits and some hop remnats which is amazing considering the age. Outstanding taste of dark fruits, almost a red wine type. One of the best beers I’ve ever had.

Bottle, from the beer multi state closet of ClarkVV. Batch 4. Good nose, cabernet, fig, caramel, orange. Orangy brown color, good head with nice lacing. Sharp bitter flavor, like aroma with a winey/whisky thing being in the forefront. Lots of dried fruit too. Medium body, creamy smooth viscious mouthfeel, dry bitter finish. Tasty brew, went down easy. Would of like to had this before some of the Midnight Suns we had ahead of it. Still a great BW. Thanks Clark

(Batch 3, 2001 Vintage) Decent head of thin foam. Cloudy dark brown in color. Rich aroma with some soy sauce, raisins, molasses and some roasted malts. Very complex. Rich but dry and bitter flavor with more raisins, a little smoke, some soy sauce again and a little tar and sour oakyness. Dry finish that is remarkably short lived. Slightly pasty. Unfortunately not as good as expected.

Batch 4 bottle from DarkElf, shared with OldGrowth on 1/22/06.
Vigorous pour yields a fair amount of retained, light-tan/beige head and some light lacing. Beer is a lightly muddy (even with a careful pour) mahogany brown with touches of ruby-auburn and tan notes. Bottle conditioned and in quite lovely shape thus far. Oxidation is present, creating just the faintest whiff of madeira in the nose, but it is fully passing and immediately gives way to cabernet, quite mellow, with chocolate, pale malt sugars and plenty of dry yeast. The cab really takes front seat, but a lovely caramelized sugar balances. No hops apparent at this point, yet there is some trace bitterness and it dosent seem particularly given to an English nature. But yet, not terribly American. If I didnt know better, I probably could barely classify it. Dry, caramel, sherry (very light) and light fruitiness. Fairly strong as well. Flavor is confusingly extravagent. Tons of pale malt, light chocolate notes, dried out with time and plenty of malty sweet texture. But sweetness is not over the top, the hops are nearly nowhere to be found, just old leafy remnants and dried-out bitterness. Thick caramel and yeast dryness finish the beer. Raisins and light plums with more of the English toffee, but not as distinctly toffeeish as the Midnight Arctic devil. The body is in remarkable shape after 3 and a half years, with still an engaging, tight carbonation, albeit low and a caramelly, malt-sticky texture. No syrupiness, some madeira and oxidation, but not that much and the cabernet really softens things. Alcohol is never detected in my sample. I wish more beers would age this gracefully.

Shared via Chuck. Batch #3. Nov. 2001. (Cab-Franc). The beer pours to a beautiful red-mahogany body with a thick and very creamy beige head. The palate is EXTREMELY thick and creamy. Almost chewy. The aroma dies down in the glass but is EASILY revive-able with a swirl. It is very malty and is full of toasted malts and is raisin-like. Similar aroma to what I remember 1999 Fuller’s to be. Also, it reminds me of Orange Julius drinks. There is also a noticeable barrel aging. However, not much noticeable alcohol. The flavor is moderately sweet, malty, and bitter, but with a very nice balance. It is quite hoppy after 4 years and 2 months. I get oranges. Thanks VERY much for sharing this!

2000 edition
Aroma: oak, alcohol, some fishiness, dark fruits, some brown sugar, vanilla, honey
Appearance: murky brown, off-white head, lacing
Flavor: honey, brown sugar, alcohol, oak barrels, candy sugar, fruit nectar, dark fruits, red grapes
Palate: very sweet, light, and syrupy, tastes amazingly fresh (i.e. no mustiness/old basement flavors to speak of), smooth but still fizzy
Overall: wow, this is really tasty; it aged well, too bad don’t have any more.

75cl bottle...batch #4 purchases from Huckleberry’s in Spokane back in 2003?? it was bottled Nov 2002. Not much head forming, fairly flat but not still...amber color...big oak, sweet malt, a bit of cherry in the aroma...not subtles here, this is bold. Sweetish drinking with very little hop bitterness...puckering wood tanins dominate the finish on this beer that seems a bit thin for a barleywine. This is the one and only bottle of this beer I bought, so I guess I’ll never get another chance at it...of the 3 people I shared this with, one really didn’t like the strong woody flavor in it and called it booze...I thought the alcohol was faint enough, but I had also had a few beers beforehand! Intense beer, although I’m not so sure that makes it great. After only one bottle of it, I’m not willing to say it is either. I certaily enjoyed it.

Poured a murky amber with an off-white head. Aroma is caramel and citrus fruit. Taste has some sweet fruit but there’s a tartness to it that I found quite surprisng and distasteful. Yeastiness also is fairly unpleasant. Didn’t care for this at all.