Great Divide Old Ruffian

Brewed by Great Divide Brewing Company
Style: Barley Wine
Denver, Colorado USA

Serve in Snifter

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Bottle. Fantastic aroma, where you can really get a sense of that great mixture between the sweetness and the bitterness. Appearance near perfect - dark brown with rich off-white head. The flavor will just knck you right off your feet! It’s bitter, it’s sweet, it’s strong and it’s just super. Mouthfeel very good: it just slides down the throat leaving you thirsty for more. Overall the best Barley Wine I’ve ever had and also one of my top 5 favorite beers altogether!!

A supurb beer, bitter for the inexperienced, but a little too sweet for me. Don’t get me wrong, this is a near perfect barleywine, a style I prefer to Trappist because it balances its sweet, malty flavors with a strongly bitter, hoppy backbone. My only qualm with this beer was its strong caramel flavor. I would rather have that quality be slightly more subtle. For someone who is used to 85-90 IBU beers, it just stood out.

Great Divide Old Ruffian Barleywine Style Ale ABV: 10.2% RateBeer rating: 98 Calories: estimated at 400C Volume: 22 fl oz Glass: snifter Purchased at: Circle Liquors Super Saver, Pennington, NJ Price: 4.99 on special who knows why. Consumed at: home First Impression: Impressive in presence and aroma. Aroma is raisins, prunes, and cherries. Sour is the leading scent. Visuals are mostly deep red and ruby body with a thin tan head. Taste is amazing. Active all over the mouth. Sweet, sour, bitter, hoppy, fruity, toasted. Grapefruit, nuts, cherries, and alcohol dominate. Palate is crisp with a dry long, very enjoyable finish. Second Impression - really takes a hold of you and does not let go. A deep and hoppy experience. Delicious, and very good. This is only my second Great divide brew, but they are very clearly my favorite brewer. Aroma: 9 out of 10 Visuals: 5 out of 5 Taste: 10 out of 10 Palate: 4 out of 5 Overall: 19 out of 20

UPDATED: JAN 30, 2012 Bomber. Big orange tan head with dark orange to red body. Aroma is very sweet molasses. A sweet hoppy flavor comes back big bitter. Great brew.

Excellent, thick mahogany colored with a small off-white head. Aroma is caramel, raisins, alcohol, and resin/piney hops. Taste of caramel, alcohol, and hops that gets much hoppier as it warms. Full bodied and very warming with a slightly dry, tongue numbing finish. Very nice. This is one of the richest, but not cloying, beers I’ve ever tried.

dark reddish brown mahogany pour with a medium sized beige head... intense caramel and fruit aromas... at first touch of the tongue the malty caramel sweetness is huge! as it trickles down the sweetness slowly subsides and the citrus and some earthiness from the hops begin to kick in... at this point, got a nice coating throughout the mouth and at the last moment tons of bitterness jumps through, not necessarily overtaking the sweetness but def standing out at this point... until the next sip!

UPDATED: FEB 17, 2007 courtesy of fiulijn - cloudy dark reddish-brown colour undewr acreamy beige head, nice lacing; very complex nose where hops and malts play a nice game together; aroma of almonds, biscuits, raisins, grapefruit and pine; sweet malts show up first; thick but at the same time incredibly smooth in the mouth; robust malt body and with an impressive but never aggressive bitterness; very long (never ending !) hoppy aftertaste where more notes of grapefruit, resin and pine needle are noticable; warming but not burning alcohol touch - a wonderful, well-structured, powerfull beer: God is this good !

[Bottle] Dark redish amber with a firm head. Dried fruits, orange peels and hops on the nose. Thick and sweet mouth feel. Flavour is lots of malt, toffee and more dried fruits followed by a long intense bitterness. The taste of alcohol is nowhere to be found. Not for the faint hearted.

UPDATED: DEC 20, 2007 12/20/07: Bottle. Malty sweet syrupy aroma. Relatively clear dark red body with a smallish light tan head and good lace. Flavor is incredible. Perfumy hop beautifully offsets the malt and considerable alcohol strength. A little surprised that a 3.92 brew is only an 88.9 percentile b-wine. Not sure that that 1 out of every 10 b-wines is better than this one. My last rating is pretty much right on so I’m not changing it. 2/8/05: Bottle. Malty, aroma with hints of hops and molasses. Beautiful red body with a light tan head. Yellow hues on sides of bottle. Beautiful head and lace. Very peppery, strong and rich. Very nice! Lovely. I liked it better than the Stone Old Guardian 2005.

Bottle. Reddish-brown color, hazy. Medium off-white head. Malty aroma, very caramel, with a nice citrus hop smell. Flavor is very full. VInuous, caramel (almost doppelbock quality) with a rich finish of well-blended hops--grapefruit and grass. The hops take effect at different moments creating a multi-layered bitterness that starts with the citrus and ends with a piney, nose tingle. Alcohol very prevalent in first few sips, and then when the hops get into full effect, subsides some. Excellent beer.