Rogue Old Crustacean Barleywine

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

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.

Ceramic bottle Dark redish/amber with a small bubbly head. Floral, citric aroma and flavour. with sweet fruits. Slightly roasted and alcoholic.

750ml ceramic bottle:
Pours dark reddish amber with a mid-sized, bubbly head. Sweet and malty toffee aroma. The flavour starts off sweet and malty but is soon washed away by an inpenetrable wall of bitterness; not even the taste of alcohol can get through.

Reviewed 5/13/2009 (Bottle 2008): Pours a dark red brown colored body, with a good-sized head, tan brown color, very lasting. Aroma of brown sugar, dark fruit. Syrup. Lots of scents. Sweet brown sugar taste, dark fruit too. Aged dark fruit. Dark grape taste. Extremely sweet syrupy taste. Too much for me.