Rogue Old Crustacean Barleywine

Brewed by Rogue Ales
Style: Barley Wine
Newport, Oregon USA

First off...can the ceramics. You do not need gimmicks to sale your beer. The ceramic bottles only add to production costs and do nothing to improve the quality of your brew. Pours a dark hazy amber with a small head. Aroma is malty with the hint of dark fruits. This is a good winter brew as it warms you right up. Tastes of raisins, plums and heavy malt. Some bitterness at the end with a wallop of alcohol.

Amber with a firm head. Some alcohol in the aroma but otherwise dominated by caramel, rasins, dades and apricots. Very bitter flavour and some dry fruits makes this a wonderful, full bodied beer.

2001 bottle sampled March ’08

At first sip of a beer at seven years of age, this is a truly special beer. I can see that at a year it would be overhopped and over-hot, but at this age it’s a delight. I think I have only one more in the cellar (an ’04) and I’ll be letting that one sit for some time.

Pours dark for a barleywine, faint head, powerful lacing. Nose of big caramel and old hops, hint of brandy. Flavor is still powerfully hopped after seven years, big grapefruit-pith resins and pine needles, nice strong malts trying to rise up into it with a sweetness that never cuts the hop oil, leaving a beer that is bitter and mouth-watering but backed by malts that would do a strong malty barleywine proud. Some roasty tones as well, even hinting toward coffee on the close especially as the hops take over again. Smooth lovely mouthful, barely carbonated, just a hint of the alcohol on the upper palate and back of the throat.

This is a really nice beer. I’ve slagged of this brewery plenty of times for their mediocre offerings, their re-labeling, and their horribly overpriced XS ceramic series, but darn it, this is a class act at seven years of age.

But there’s a downside. When I started with the 12oz bottle I felt like I could drink three of them with glee, but as I’m finishing this first bottle the strong oils are already fatiguing my palate and the alcohol heat is starting to come through big and strong as this one gets warm. It’s making me thirsty, to enjoy the rest I’m going to need a glass of water to clear the oils off my palate; I could drink a taller glass of Islay whisky than this without needing a water chaser. By the end of the bottle I’m sick of it; no two ways about it, that’s points off. I was about 4.0 after the first sip. But 3.7 seems more than enough now.

Amber-brown with big, foamy tan head / Sweet, malty, bready nose / Light to medium body with surprisingly balanced malts and dry, chewy hops with good finish / Flavors of chocolate, nuts, caramel, and figs / For me, a little too light and hoppy to be a barleywine, but a very good strong ale in any case.

(bottle) Pours dark brown with a light tan head. This beer smelled like a perfume, with some hints of grain and light vanilla as well. Taste is sweet up front with raisin, prune, and caramel, but that initial pleasant taste is drowned out with a copious and bracingly bitter hop finish that would not go away for several minutes. I’m sure this beer would be pretty good aged, but when fresh it’s way too hoppy.

Had on draft at Rogues Pub in SF. Poured a dark ruby color. Sweet malty smell. Taste was sweet malts and plums. A bit of a bitter finish I wasnt expecting.

I was really disappointed with this one. I’m not a great fan of barley wines, but this was one of the yuckiest I’ve had.

Pricy ceramic bottle. Pours a cloudy dark orange-brown with very tight yellowish-beige head. The aroma is strong pine, toffee, and caramel, with some fainter notes of plum, lemon, wood, and alcohol. The flavor is immediately impressively bitter with fairly aggressive piney hops. The bitterness lasts throughout, but some caramel and raisin tones start to come out underneath as well for a modicum of balance. The finish has a touch of honey as well as a charred note. The aftertaste is lingering and dry, with just a little bit of alcohol. Not too shabby.