Rogue Old Crustacean Barleywine

Old review of a fresh bottle of 2007 - but I obviously should have let this age. Interesting to review it fresh though. Why did I like this so little? Dark brown beer, oddly shaded brown cap and a tiny bit of retention. Aroma: alcohol first that almost burns the nose, weak toffee, some coffee. Boring. I sure hope that I have another one in the cellar so I can prove this review wrong. The taste is pretty lame as well. Pretty straight forward BW. Yeast, some sweetness, slight coffee and something else tied into the coffee bitterness. Full bodied. Chalky and not enough bitterness. Highly unsatisfying. I think that there was just waaaay too much stuffed into this bottle.

RBSG09 on tap at the Rogue Publick House in SF. Deep copper color, total clarity, thin tan head. Big caramel malty aroma, cherries, Dayquil? Raisins and caramel flavor, bread dough, hop resin, some astringency. Flavors don’t mesh all that well. Decent at best.

Ruby red with a beige head. Smells a bit funky, lactic, smoked aromas. Very bitter finish--was difficult to finish entire glass.

750ml ceramic swingtop, 2006 vintage. Dark brown with some red hues, creamy beige head, nice sticky lacing. Malty nose, some sweetness, but a trace of earthiness too. Some alcohol in the nose as well. Sweet malts in the mouth, some coffee bean like roast notes, some chocolate notes, powerful grapefruit hop presence. Finish is not surprisingly highly bitter and lingering. Grapefruit hops in the aftertaste. Body is full, the carbonation is light. Still pretty hoppy even 3 yrs later.

I found this in a ceramic bottle along with the Imperial Pilsner Pours a dark brown with a thick frothy tan head which settled to a skim, rich aromas, malty with a good presence of hops, coffee and other aromas. finished off nicely, tastes of dark fruits caramels, hoppy and hides the alcohol very well. Nice Rogue brew, though rather expensive

2008 ceramic bottle. Pours maroon and a bit hazy, a small big bubble head. Butter aroma. A bit sour with a booze like alcohol.

Beer pours a dark brown with just a skiff of a tan cap, and I swear the head has a very slight green tinge to it WHY!?!?! Smell is very mild mostly consisting of coffee, some spice I can’t seem to identify, and sweet chocolate, overall its very mild and not really all that appealing. Taste is just bitter and chalky. I swear on one or two sips I can taste some water melon, but really this over priced brew has no flavor except bitter but that’s not really a flavor. For a barley wine this sucks, it doesn’t really taste bad because there is no flavor, it is just boring and highly disappointing. And what made the beer even worse I did the review of it while losing a game of chess to Beercronic."

Way too bitter. Nothing much else really, some buttery sweetness maybe, but the extreme and harsh bitterness really kills everything else.