Smuttynose Wheat Wine

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

On tap at Quotations in Media, PA. Hazed orange brown with a tan skin that ends up in lacy sheets. Sweet orange and berries. Mild tangy carb with a smooth medium body. Carmelized apple with a wheat and hoppy bite. Alcohol detracts.

Courtesy of tpd975 hooking our weekly tasting group up with a yummy barleywine. You know what I like!! Pours hazy copper with thin gold edges and thin tan head. The aroma is plums, prunes, crystal malts, sweet malts, pine hops and some alcohol heat. The taste is sweet sticky sugar malts mixing seamlessly with some caramel candy. Those rich tasty notes are followed by prunes, dried cherries, figs, pears and raisins. The wheated malt note isn’t all that noticeable or less than I was expecting anyway. I can get a sense of the wheat just behind the rich malt and caramel goodness. Yeah, I can get used to drinking a bomber of this. Thanks again Greg.

2006 bomber. I actually appreciated this a bit more when it was fresh, as the crisp wheat flavors seem to have devolved a bit into more or less typical Barleywine heat and malt. It’s probably a good deal better than "typical" in all fairness, but my initial impressions were stronger. Still quite nice, but the piquant flavors I initially recall have subsided too much. I’ll drink it fresh next time I can get it.

The wheat adds a nice light touch to the barley-wine style. A solid drink, if a little underwhelming. Carbonation is nice, but perhaps a little much.

Smuttynose Wheat Wine is a cloudy red-orange-brown beer with a thin off-white head. It has a twangy, sweet aroma that seems a little resiny. In the mouth, it’s fluffy and full bodied. It’s quite smooth. It’s well balanced-- a little bitter and a little sweet. I like this. It seems like a good barleywine. I’d never suspect that there was so much wheat in it.

22 oz bottle served in my Smuttynose snifter. Poured a pretty dark plum color with some haze to it. Small off white head and no lace to speak of. Aroma is dark fruits & old wood. Heavy, sticky, oily palatte. Flavor was a complex mix of dark fruits, malts, barley & brown sugar. Behind it all a strong alcohol burn. This is one of Smutty’s "Big Beers" & I would say it is.

Bomber from 2007, aged 2 years. Pours a clear, deep, red amber hue with a small, smooth head of ivory foam. Settling quickly to a thin film with a tight ring around the edge, the head leaves behind some dense, sugary sheeting that breaks apart into wet lacing spots. For a two year old brew, the aroma shows a healthy dose of fruity, citrusy hops atop a malt bed of moderately toasted caramel, wheat grain, berries, and golden raisins. Flavors show even more hop substance, notes of bitter orange peel and spicy, wild grasses balancing out the sweet caramel and fruity wheat malt within. Rum raisin and perhaps a bit of fig shine through nicely, along with glints of dark winter spices. The palate is hefty, weighed down a bit by all the sugary malts and showing quite a bitof alcoholic bite. Bitterness intensifies on the long finish, with just a touch of oxidation showing at this point in time. Overall, it’s a fine example of a hoppy, fruity American wheat wine. I’m glad I let this one sit for a while, as it almost certainly would have proven too harsh when young.

Bomber sampled at Butters’ 1500 / MmmcKay’s 200 tasting. Pours a clear red with ring of white head. Nose of a foodlion brand toasted cherry poptart. Boozy, rummy, fruity, molassis flavors with a lingering hop bitterness on the tail. Good and resiny. More like a BW than any other wheat wine I’ve had.