Pennichuck Pompier

Formerly brewed at Pennichuck Brewing Company
Style: Barley Wine
Milford, New Hampshire USA

Serve in Snifter

Bottle at Tampa Crew tasting. Poured a hazy orangeish brown color. Sweet yeasty, fruity aroma. Flavor is very funky abd sweet. Theres definitely some oak in there and fruit maybe plum or cherry. Alcohol is pretty well-hidden. Didn’t care for this so much.

Bad batch I think, on tap at Dive 75 in New York. Soured. I noticed some other people commented on this, quality control issues perhaps? Wayyy too much oak accentuated by sour nastiness. I’ll try to re-rate. Aroma of oak, some decent head, but a little flat after the head settled. Some potential there I guess, but doesn’t mean much if it’s gone bad.

2009 flip-top Bottle - Thanks Toby! - Pours a murky brown with a small tan head...aroma is malty fruit, caramel, tartness...flavour was bitter as shit, some bad bacteria took this one and made it its bitch...sour, quite a bummer...

1 liter flip top. Pours out a dark hazy brown topped with a small sand head. Aroma was sour with some sweetness. Plenty of wood. Tast was oak, med cab, some fruit and tuns of sour. This bottle was infected!!! A whole 1-liter, what a shame all gone to waste. Sad to say but more than 3/4 of the bottle was dumped out. Thanks Toby. I hope the other bottles you have are good.

1 liter flip top bottle. Pours a dark rusty caramel with a medium beige head. Aroma of rotting wood, sour cherries, oak wood chips and yeast. Taste of rotting wood, oak wood chips, sour cherries, sour candied sugar and yeast. Alcohol very well hidden.

I am drinking a 1 liter bottle of 12% barleywine all by myself - why the hell does Pennichuck keep putting such high grav beers in such large bottles? - anyway, let’s hope I get out of this alive - pours a hazy medium amber, with a fairly impressive lace - loads of oak in the nose, as well as notes of whiskey, caramel, cherries - I should have gauged from the description (aged in oak barrels, WITH oak chips) that this beer would be an oak overload, and it really is - the oak is so dominant that it adds a dry, bitter (nearly sour), almost gin-like character to the beer, which barely makes way for any of the beer’s other characteristics - the british barleywine qualities are there (mostly some doughy character, caramel, nuttiness, light oats), but the oak slams the palate so much that you can hardly taste these things - the alcohol is quite well-hidden, though, and once the flavor settles in, the oak is a bit more tolerable - finish is bitter and mildly acidic, with some alcohol warmth - if they lay off some of the oak, this would be much better.

08 swingtop. Maple syrup colored pour with a fine tan head. Aroma and flavor are dominated by a single noted grapefruity hoppiness. Vanilla, whiskey, oak, alcohol, and caramel are there, but are secondary. Definitely would benefit from some age.

Aged 1 year. Pours deep mahogany into a snifter. Off-white head pancakes and recedes at a medium fast pace to hug rim. Oak and molasses aromas. Oak upfront and full with a vanilla and coconut middle and a sweet, lasting dark caramel, molasses and alcohol burn.