Hair of the Dog Doggie Claws (2003-)

Brewed by Hair of the Dog Brewing Company
Style: Barley Wine
Portland, Oregon USA

#600! Courtesy footbalm. Bottle 2005. Pours a hazy orange amber with a thin off white head. Good mixture of hops and malts in the nose, defintely some citrus fruit as well, especially oranges. Very crisp smelling. The taste is very powerful, big on flavor and the alcohol lets you know its there. Heavy on the malts, but with enough hops to balance it out decently. Some mixtures of caramel and fruits make up the rest of the flavor. Pretty complex and interesting. Just a solid barley wine. Very happy with this choice as my latest milestone beer.

Bottle (12oz - dated 2005). Shared with jerc, his bottle - thanks for the share!. Deeply murky brownish-orange with a large lasting beige fizzy-creamy head. Juicy resiny/orange hop and sweet honey malt, mildly and thickly spicy, very yeasty and rich. Taste - big initial hit of peppery dry sharp hops, then honey-sweet malt, booze, yeast and spice - it mellows out to a slightly woody balanced finish; the alcohol stays with you the whole time. Thick, syrupy mouthfeel, quite complex - the overtone of raw cinnamon and funky yeast is interesting; excellent, complex barleywine, could age even more - thanks for sharing, Jer!

2004 bottle... Appears a deep chestnut brown with a dark beige head that slowly fades into a mild cap. Scattered lacing is left around the glass. Moderate amounts of CO2 rises near the top. Smell is of caramel, vanilla, toffee, cherries. roasted nuts, and light oxidation that’s welcomed.

2004 bottle. Flavor is a raging mix of malt and hops, citrusy-grapefruit flavors, brown sugar, grass, and a healthy dose of cough syrup (but not in a bad way, if that can be believed). This is a big beer with a big ABV, and it doesn’t apologize for that fact. Now that the whole thing is almost gone it’s hard to tell the flavors apart, I just get a sense of syrupy sweetness and hop bite fading into an alcoholic haze. Tasty, but nothing outrageous for the style (think Bigfoot with more edge). All in all, a great drink.

Oh yeah. This here is what I’m talking about, fool! A delicious, nearly perfect barley wine. Sticky sweet and syrupy, yet smooth as fine oriental silk. Fortunately, you can’t really make a session out of these without injury or arrest, so that’s good. I’d have gone higher on the overall, but since this was part of the Death Metal Beer Tasting Festival, things are a little foggy. I’m sure I liked it even MORE than I am leading on here, several days after the fact.

From a 12 oz. long neck brown bottle with the year made, 2005, in the lower center of label, sampled at cellar temperature in a snifter. Made a good appearance, poured a murky orange hued amber brown with a small foamy head that settled into a thin lacing, minimal amount of sticking, pretty good carbonation overall, I kind of surprise because of the murkiness, with sediment, of the pour. Had a nice hop nose of pine resin and citric herbal, a bit floral with whiffs of honey, yeast and alcohol at the edges. A crisp, sprightly hop textured with a little coarseness, smooth medium bodied mouth feel, good sipping drinkability. Big hoppy taste, pine needles and spruce, mild citric that compliments the herbal flavors, bitter with a soft numbing of the tongue, a subtle dry yeastiness, a submerged honey and sweet malts that rests beneath the hops during the entire taste, and a hop resinous finish. An excellent barley wine from Hair of the Dog, exactly what you expect from this brewer. I have two bottles to taste now and four to age, I imagine it will get smoother as it ages and lose some of it’s roughness.

12oz bottle from 2004. beautiful light brown/dark amber with a tan head that leaves great lacing. aroma very heavy. big roasted malt raisins and lots of alcohol. almost a bit too much alcohol. flavor sweet raisins spicy cinnamon. finish bittersweet medium dry spicy. full bodied creamy carbonation. nice barleywine.

Bottle - Thanks to Irishboy!!!!! Pours an orange amber colour with a slight off white head. Wow, lovely honey-caramel hop aroma, really memorable aroma, quite sweet. There’s a whole lot goingon in the flavour (in a great way) nuts, hops, caramel, some serious fruitiness, lemons, mango and apple, caramel through and through, brilliant!!!