Smuttynose Wheat Wine

Brewed by Smuttynose Brewing Company
Style: Barley Wine
Portsmouth, New Hampshire USA

I’m not a huge fan of barley wine to begin with, so for me this wasn’t such a great beer. But I know a barley wine person who thinks its awesome... This beer is pretty sweet, easy to drink. It tastes like a strong beer to me despite what other may say. Has a hoppy, bitter sweet aftertaste. Kind of a funky, dirty-bar smell.

Vibrant amber colour with plenty of haze. Sweet, heavy nuttiness and light fruit notes (pear, peach) make up the malty aroma. The flavour is more of the same, with a bit more nuttiness and a fairly chewy texture. I was hoping for something more earth-shattering, given my love of all things Smutty.

Yes, I’m being very generous with my rating of this beer, mainly because I can’t get it anymore. I’ve lived all over the world, and I think the most important thing is the freshness of the beer—this is my local brew now. This stuff was hard to get a hold of around here in ’05 due to it’s Quality and Kick, but I grabbed as much as I could when I could. As good or better than any Barley Wine I’ve had, can’t wait for next year. As always, beutiful artwork on the Big Beer label.

A nice sweet beer with a good ruby body. Very minimal carbonation. A smooth ending that is very easy to drink.

Small white head on a golden body. Malty nose with hoppy undertones. Malty taste with medicinal aftertaste.

Demure beauty on the label. Amber color. Light in aroma, a bit of vanilla. Bourbon flavor, caramel, subdued alcohol. A little thin for a barleywine. Drinkable but not my favorite barleywine.

(2005 Edition) A chill haze laden beer that is sticky sweet. The nose is very sweet and malty. Sugary sweet desert style beers are something that I like on occasion, but 22ozs of this stuff is too much for me. Vanilla and bourbon are the dominate flavors on the palate. In an odd way this beer oaky.

Dull amber body with low carbonation and a minimal head merely consisting of sparse white bubbles. Nice aroma of rich sweet grain, light maple, flowering herbs, stonefruit, and alcohol. Unusual flavor like lemongrass, bitter herbs, and furniture polish. Very hoppy and very bitter with some lemony tartness and dark honey sweetness. A very big beer with wide-ranging, somewhat discordant flavors. Full, fairly flat body. Interesting and different, but not a great beer.