Green Flash Barleywine

Brewed by Green Flash Brewing Co.
Style: Barley Wine
Vista, California USA

Bottle. Red dark amber colour with a beige head. Aroma is cacao, coffee, malt, hop, grapefruit. Flavour is sweet, malt, grapefruit, coffee, hop, caramel. Full bodied nice beer.

Dark brown color with a thin head. Sweet malty nose with a little sugar to it. Oddly enough, the taste switches to slightly bitter, coupled with some nice coffee notes. Kind of an odd barley wine, but definitely enjoyable.

Bomber but was labeled as the old 2nd anniversary BW- not the new BW label. PPRBSG. Pours a nice deep amber with a large frothy head. Aroma is big toasty and sweet malts, figs and tons of other fruity esters, raisin- and peach- good hops still lingering- I think the bottle has been aged for a while though. Flavor is a mellow hop backbone with lots of big fruity esters and lots of nice smooth sweet big toasty malts, light caramel, toffee, some molasses, and mellowed hops in the back for a good bitterness. Smooth and easy drinking.

Original vintage bomber shared by SuIIy on 1/6/06. Didn’t write down the bottle number.
A dirty beige head, flecked with dark ivory, rises up to two fingers in height. Medium-mahogany to chestnut brown body still shows plentiful carbonation and dull chartreuse tints. The head shows moderate retention and produces very sticky lacing all about the glass. Medium clarity.
Rich brown bread-like maltiness is immediately matched with light prune and date-like notes. Strong base malt sugars add a creamy sweetness in the background, as well. A bit of alcohol warmth emerges in the middle, beginning to dry the aroma out, while dry chocolate and crunchy, coffeeish roast continues the trend. The finish is dotted with more of the prune and date notes, perhaps adding a bit juicier raisin-like note as well as some buttertoffee. No trace of hop aromatics due in part to the age, but it dosent seem like this was ever overly aromatic (but there’s plenty of pine and citrus bitterness). Curiously, with warming, a very distinct yeast note emerges on the finish. Not sure what it is, but I’ve smelled it before. It’s plasticy/rubbery and dry, but dosent seem unpleasant. Rather it mixes with the malts to give almost a cola-like note. Perhaps it’s autolysis, but it’s rather clean and well behaved, if so. Aroma strength is medium to medium-high, though the complexities/subtleties far outmatch the sheer strength.
Sweet at first, with caramel and base malts mixing with the darker roasted malts to produce sweet chocolate and toffee notes. Light hints of alcohol produce a Spanish coffee-like note that balances the sweetness and adds some life to this vintage sipper. Plenty of raisins, prunes and dates, with strong vanilla-like sweetness continue the English feel to it. It dries out heavily on the finish, however, with crusty, bare, dark malts and a hard brown breadiness that dulls the previous fruitiness. Bit of alcohol heat comes on with warming, and the malts get a little edgier.
Great presentation of flavors, but unfortunately, the body suffers from a noticeable amount of thinness. Not caused by age or carbonation, but just seemingly not enough unfermentables to really give the richness and bravado of some of the better English barleywines. The carbonation is appropriate (medium-light, not sharp) and the texture is reasonable (smooth and oily), but the thinness is at odds with the nature of this beer. While it allows for more drinkability, barleywines are by no means intended to be a quick quaffer, nor do the flavors here allow it to be.

660ml bottle (Pikkulintu, Helsinki, Bitter and Sour 2008)
Huge hoppy aroma, a bit burnt malt too. Quite astringent hoppiness in the mouth - bites into the tongue. Massive hoppy taste too, and not too sweet, but still a bit sticky. Feels strong, but not actually alcoholic. Fairly well balanced for a big big beer.

(500ml bottle) Thanks to TiggMTL for sharing this beer. Medium, frothy almond head with a deep red body. Nose of a Hi-C IPA. Flavour of an Imperial IPA. Bitter whiskey notes, malt and the Hi Pine of the West Coast - Yahoo! I am a hop’n cowboy!

Bottle. Almost clear amber colour with a medium off white head. Sweet aroma and taste of caramel, fruits and alcohol. Slightly bitter finish. Too alcoholic for my liking.

Bottled. Deep ruby red. Small off-white head. Sweet and malty, vinous aroma. Thick, almost oily palate. Full-bodied. Very sweet and malty flavour with a pretty distinct bitterness.