Iron Hill Golden Barleywine

Brewed by Iron Hill Maple Shade
Style: Barley Wine
Maple Shade, New Jersey USA

Serve in Snifter

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From a growler pouring gold with white head. The aroma is fruity with tangelo, peach, orange and some sweet malts in the background. The taste start very IIPA – like with solid tangelo citrus hoppiness, some hoppy spice and sweet malts bleeding into grapefruit hop bitterness. To midway the hops really explode to full IIPA levels. No sense of the standard fruity esters of the barleywine style. It ends like it started with a backbone of sweetness and a ton of citrus hops.

In short: A thick, sticky and extremely hoppy golden big beer.
How: Cask conditioned at brewpub, Maple Shade location, NJ. Called “The Situation”
The look: Partly cloudy golden body topped by a medium white head with good retention
In long: Intense nose of highly resinous hops, some alcohol fumes and caramel. Taste proposes a thick a very sticky caramelized and honeyed malt backbone. Then comes a truckload of extremely resinous hops. Alcohol is a bit present but not overwhelming. There was something very sticky about this beer, I could feel it coating the inside of my mouth getting stuck in my throat. Overall this felt like some kind of resinous Triple IPA. Intense pleasant sipper. At the Maple Shade location in New-Jersey this beer was called “The Situation”, the star of a popular local reality show called Jersey Shore. Americans now name their beers after reality shows! Sad. Anyway, I’ve come to think that the main problem with the USA is that the people who vote for American Idols are also the ones who vote for an American President.

growler courtesy of ibre2or3. Pours golden with thick white head. Aroma had quite a hoppy and spice nose. Taste hoppy wityh some fruity notes, boozy, lots of sweetness (sugar). Not bad, but overly hoppy.

Draught at Phoenixville BrewPub: Aroma of hops, pine, grapefruit, pale malts, and light caramel. Poured amber with a hint of gold in color and a small to medium-sized, dense, off-white head that lasted throughout. Clear. Very sparkling. Very good to excellent lacing. Flavor is lightly sweet and medium to heavily bitter. Tastes of hops, pine, light grapefruit, slight sugar, pale malts, and slight resin. Medium body. Dry texture. Average carbonation. Bitter, hoppy, dry finish. A really nice, quite bitter, and very different barley wine.

Poured a golden, orange color with a medium sized, off white head that left nice lacing on the glass. Aroma of citrus, floral, grapefruit hops, wood as well. Taste of sweet toffee, caramel, some earth, lots of bitter hoppiness, and light alcohol as well. Really nice, and different barleywine.

Tap at IHWC. Pours a lightly hazy golden with a medium creamy/bubbly white head that left tons of lacing. Aroma of fresh floral and citrusy hops, orange, bready malt. Flavor of tons of hop flavor, spicy, citrusy and floral. Lots of doughy malt character with malt sweetness as well. Lots of hop bitterness. More double IPA than barleywine, I like it.

Tap in Maple Shade as ’The Situation’ -- always happy to see brewers cash in on the Jersey Shore phenomenon, right? Right? Copper with clingy white head. Beautiful American hop nose, heavy grapefruit with grapey notes reminiscent of Sauvin (not saying it’s Nelson here but that’s the effect for me), faint booze. Medium-full body, slick with citric hops, orange and grape, peach! Like that it’s not syrupy. Alcohol well-integrated, gentle warming and bro-licious!

Draft. Nice lacing and a fruitty aroma. Man, this shit is strong. Yeah its on the sweet side and warming and all but still sweet.

Draft of what I would consider a DIPA. Poured a clear orange/amber with a smaller bright white foamy head. Aroma is pine, citrus, almost sweet despite all the hops. Flavor of dry citrus rind, fresh hops, toast, dry pine needles. Dry palate despite all the hops. Solid but if it wasn’t so dry I’d swear this was a DIPA.

Growler: Poured a hazy orange with a white head. Aroma is hoppy and sweet malts. This thing started of tasting more IPA with lots of hops, but smoothed over into some fruit and chewy malt.