New Holland Existential Hopwine

Brewed by New Holland Brewing Company
Style: Barley Wine
Holland, Michigan USA

Bottle shared with Blankboy, GregClow, Mds, and Hogtown Harry, courtesy of Hogtown Harry. Weird veggie like hop aroma - alcohol too - interesting. Dark orange, no head. Very nice taste - very bitter and boozy. Long bitter finish. Good, but nothing else at all here - bitter and booze. Great sipper, neats more though..it is just missing some complexity to be considered great.

(Bottle 65 cl) Courtesy of boboski. Slightly hazy amber golden with a yellowish head. Fat aroma of caramel and hops. Very full in body with loads of sweet caramel and nuts and a hoppy finish. To me this is a classical American barley wine. 150807

Bottle shared with blankboy, HogTownHarry, mds and tupalev - courtesy of HogTownHarry. Orange-amber colour with not much head. Odd aroma that is quite floral, but also has some notes of tomato (or perhaps tomato plant?), and a big boozy warmth. Flavour is very bitter - yup, this was definitely dry-hopped - with some sweet malt struggling to come through to sharp citrus notes. I appreciate what they’re trying to do with this, but even a hophead like me needs a bit more balance.

Light amber/orange color with a beige head. Aroma is pretty sweet, almost like candy, with oranges and some alcohol. Flavor of very sweet malts and some hops. Body is a little syrupy.

Bottle (22oz). Shared with blankboy, GregClow, mds, tupalev - my bottle. Hazy amber-orange, smallish diminishing fizzy beige head. Sweet and floral aroma - orange zest and marigolds, progressively boozy, and slightly papery. Taste - wow! - massively bitter, dry, almost peppery resin hops, solid light grain and citrus malt, and it would be boozy if it weren’t so bitterr - pretty impressive. Average body, very carbonated and astringent, even lightly acidic those dry hops stick it out through the long bitter finish .... I’m impressed - very different and very good!

22oz Bomber $6.99 Binny’s Willowbrook Existential Ale: Hopwine pours amber but glows a slightly hazy copper when held to the light.A nice dense two finger ivory head formed on the pour and as it fell left excellent lacing. The lowest the head fell was a half-finger cap. Good looking brew. Smell is fairly mild. A big nose of caramel upfront and following through. Maybe even a hint of toffee. Grapefruit and a drop of orange come around in the middle. Tea leaf-like herbal hoppiness mixes in the aroma as well. Not bad but subdued for a "Hopwine". Flavor begins with that very same caramel backbone that is strong upfront but fades as the hops come about. Some toffee in the flavor as well but the backend focuses on hops, mild but hops none-the-less. Tea leaf like hop bitterness along with just a squeeze or two of citrus on the finish. Good but not very exciting. Good mouthfeel. The body is medium with a creamy frothiness that slides along rather easily. Carbonation is on the low side but works nicely. The mouthfeel definately helps the drinkability but unfortuanately the smell and flavor drag it down. Not at all bad but nothing really stands out. I was expecting something more from a so called "hopwine" but it didn’t quite deliver. Actually it was a little low on the hops, the problem is, all I wanted was hops, that’s why I bought a hopwine. A little less decieving of a name would make for a better brew.

Hazy orange-amber color. The aroma is strange, with hops, malt but also celeri. Quite strong body, very good malty flavor (or sweet caramel) and a bit oily, well balanced by the correct (strong) hopping, that is a bit aromatic too, with hop oils, and some toffee impression, growing towards the end. Very powerful and good, but not my favorite.
In my opinion it doesn’t fit the class of the Barley Wines and IPAs, but more a generic American Strong Ale.

Bottle, and a pretty one at that. Fruity hop aroma; more fruity than hop, like an APA. Beautiful, hazy amber with avg.-sized off-white head. Nice lace. Rich, high alcohol brew. I should have gotten another bottle. Excellent. Before I realized this was a barleywine, I thought it tasted barleywinish. Very nice and smooth. An easy drinking sipper. Underrated, although I would agree that perhaps it doesn’t deserve to be super high in style percentile.