North Coast Old Stock Ale

Brewed by North Coast Brewing Company
Style: Barley Wine
Fort Bragg, California USA

07 bottle. My first barley beer, so I don’t have anything to compare to. Pretty tasty, poured ruby brown with a reddish-tan head. Tasty, I can tell the complexity, but not sure what to look for. Pretty nice though.

06 bottle- Nice warming beer, great sipper for winter. Poured red-brown with light brown head. I get carmel, maple, and alcohol out of this one. Solid beer had to drink it before the bourbon barrel just to see the difference. This version of old stock seems empty after drinking the BB version. The body seemed to thin for me. The finish is all alcohol too.

[Bottle] Pours reddish-amber with a small yellowish-tan head. There is a lot of fruit and malt in the aroma--overall quite sweet. I also detected a little chocolate, caramel malt and alcohol. The taste is much the same, but heavier on the alcohol. This was a fairly fresh bottle though, so that was to be expected. Medium mouthfeel with a long finish. A nice barley wine that I will definitely have to try again when it has some age on it.

’05 vintage. Thanks for bringing this one over joey! Amber with a little off white head. Aroma was dried fruits and maple syrup. Flavor was raisin, plum, brown sugar, more maple syrup, a bit of alcohol. Finished syrupy. ABV was noticeable, borderline on being overpowering.

Pours a dark ruby color that is pretty clear with a sizable tan head. Aroma is of sweet malt, alcohol, and spice. Flavor is heavy in alcohol, but there are lots of sweet malt flavors as well... notably caramel. 12 oz. bottle, 2008 vintage.

-2003 vintage- Highly effervescent head that bubbles and fizzes nicely but reduces to a small film of bubbles around the edge. Color is dark amber/red, cloudy with a small amount of sediment. Smells extremely vinous with a definate alcohol and sweet fruit note that is pleasant. Overwhelmingly get the smell of alcohol and sweet fruits. Taste is unexpected. There is really a lot happening but here goes. A really wine like quality that live up to the BarleyWINE name. Extremely smooth in your mouth and it is almost sugary as it washes over your tongue, then your brain deciphers it and you get the true tastes. Sweet fruity flavor with a alcohol backbone, I get no hops characteristics whatsoever. A good caramel taste sticks with you in the aftertaste. VERY good.

Vintage 2004 - tasting notes 2005). Dark red with a quickly decending head. Melon, peach, raisins and some alchol in the aroma. It’s a heavy barley wine, no doubt about that, vineous, sweet malty and yeasty with a good bitter finish. Good to be a couple of guys, going into this one.

Vintage 2006; fresh. Let to warm, it’s sweet and softly rich. Pours to a mahogany red, smelling of various spirits of its color, which I’m too unfamiliar with to really distinguish. Vanilla, caramel, nutmeg. Magnificent, towering malty texture; a substantial surface of pale malt for a honeyish beginning and a molten core of dense caramel malt. Raisiny, scotchy, very sweet, but not too aggressively. A nice snow-day or bonfire accompaniment. 7/4/8/4/16 3.9

Vintage 2004; three years and five months. Pours a ruddy, reddened amber hue, bubbles hissing furiously but forming no foam. Full aroma of pecan pie, dates, cinnamon, and bread; skirtings of melon fruit character, port, raisin, and caramel. It has this really evocative, abiding tone of seared dessert crust of something like chocolate chip or brown sugar cookies that gives it a special warmth. Flavor is lightly oxidized and quieted by the weight of sherry and wet cardboard, but still gives a rich and complex presentation of toasted vanilla, brandy and port, black pepper, date, and walnut. Sweetness has tempered itself quite a bit and run aground into some seriously oily and earthy nut flavors; tangy licks of pineapple, apple, and gingerbread liven up the midpalate very nicely. Hops seem perfumey and musky. Barren, wooden alcohol brings a bit of oxidation again; too noticeable. Really, at times this seems infinitely complex and polished, while at others it only gives a stale, moist cardboard effect. Definitely hard to gauge, but overall the first impression is more dominant. Palate is rich and full; scantily carbonated and port-like in texture. Winks of tropical fruit in the smack, with molasses and pecan bread; dense, lengthy and generous. Two and half to three years would probably find this example in top form, but as is, it’s quite a fine one. 9/3/9/4/16 4.1