Great Divide Old Ruffian

(bottle into weird Urthel glass) Clean and very strong hop aroma. Pours a dark cloudy mohogany with a fading yellow head (maybe because of my glass selection). This is my first barley wine so im in no ways an authority on the style, but i really liked it alot. It has a wonderfull complexity that sustains. Bold hop attack is smoothed out in the end. Very drinkable.

My first beer of 07! This barleywine pours a deep sort of cloudy cherry wood color with a cream colored head that produces a great deal of lacing on my snifter. The aroma is powerfully full of hops with a background of rich malt character. Seems to be out of balance. The flavor... WOW HOPS! Massive grapefruity hops, but similar to the aroma, seems out of balance with a background of sweet malts. The mouthfeel contributes a great deal to the enjoyment of the beer as it is thick, almost oily smoothness hides the alcohol. Overall, tasty, but far from perfect. This is the first time I’ve ever tried one of these hhuge hoppy barleywines so perhaps a revisit is in order.

Massive hops,mild caramel huge pine sap with hints of semi sour grapefruit. This describes it somewhat in aroma and totally in flavor. Wow! $5.50 a bomber,go for it.

Opaque amber pour with a creamy 2-finger off-white head. Hoppy, toasty malt and coffee aroma. Smooth mouth feel. Sharp bitter aferetatse. High abv quite noticeable (both in taste and aftereffects!)

This is one I picked up on a whim, bomber poured into 25cL snifter. Started with a light red hue, thick tan head, and very clear. Noticed a hint of vanilla mixed into the aroma along with nice citrus and pine notes. The taste is wonderful, starts out with a nice bitter hop flavor, going over to a sweet malt taste with a subtle hop finish. I didn’t notice the taste of the alcohol, but I did feel the warm as it went down my throat. I’m very curious as to how this will age.

Nice taste in the beginning but, the after taste left something to be desired. Smell was good but, I had a hard time picking anything specific out. Very nice appearance over-all.

Lovely beer. Dark amber brown w/ a giant tan head of small bubbles that never quite goes away completely and leaves intricate webs of lace w/ each sip. Nose is sticky pine, tropical fruit and apricot--very much an American hop extravaganza but subtly different and unique. I always enjoy the hop character of Great Divide beers and this is no exception. It is very noticeably malty, almost malt emphasized up front w/ a balancing presence of fruity hop flavors and a firm slap of bitterness in the finish. The texture here is rather firm and thick but not at all sticky. Overall, it’s rather subtle for its strength and, frankly, I was hoping for something a little more assertive (but I suppose I can hardly fault it for that). I think this would be a good one for aging. I could see some nutty or sherry notes complimenting the malts in this quite well.

2006 bomber from Rooftoprogue, drunk on 11/21/06
First off, let me say that I really respect the commercial description on this one. No fancy claims and stunningly accurate. I might have some other ways of describing "the wonders" the hops work on your palate, but that’s just subjective.
All GD big beers show a large amount of head, well-retained and fluffy, with very light sediment on the bottom of the bottle. Medium-high clarity in a dark chestnut-mahogany with some hickory and dull auburn tints. Head is beige and creates ample lacing. Plentiful carbonation seen in the liquid.
True as they say, the nose is, at first, mellow and quite fruity. Mostly yellow fruits (light peaches, nectarines, apricots) slowly picking up hop influences to include orange rind, lemons and of course, grapefruit. But it’s certainly not brightly aromatic in the hop department. Thick and bitter, the hops hang over the other flavors with a strong, astringent/acidic leafiness. Some faint melon notes are present but quickly lose out to heavy resin. Warming on the finish from the alcohol, but no sharp/raw fumes. Caramel malt seems well attenuated, but still sticky, giving notes of treacle and molasses. Toffee and dry breadiness, something like munich malt almost seems apparent as well. Earthy, you might call the malt.
A brief interlude of light pale malt sweetness is banished by heavily bitter, resinous/citric hops. Intensely acidic and drying, it’s no stretch to imagine the 90 IBUs here. It immediately begins to fatigue my palate, and some bready malts, with traces of lightly sweet toffee and caramel are felt in the back of the palate, holding more sway over the texture than the flavor balance. Still, as much as some sweet malt would create more balance, I don’t think it would ameliorate the heavy/fatiguing feel of the hop acids and thus, I like the dry, attenuated feel of the malt here. Crusty, earthy, crunchy and quite lean, though the beer is never watery or undermalted. Hops burn through to the finish and a pine sap numbness is left on the palate. Well-made, in respect to the attenuation, cleanliness and general aims of the beer (it does exactly what the brewer seems to intend, according to the commercial description). In the end, though, I just find these beers to be obnoxiously crass and unbalanced; fatiguing to the extreme. As well, the aroma needs more finishing hops and brightness. It’s too dull and bitter. Not something I’d ever drink again, but I can see the appeal to hopheads.