Stone Old Guardian (Vintages 2004 and later)

Brewed by Stone Brewing Co.
Style: Barley Wine
Escondido, California USA

’09 bottle from VBS. Aroma is barley and lots of it. You can almost smell how thick this is going to be. Pours a deep amber and relatively clear with a thick luscious off-white head. Taste is slightly sweet with a some bitterness. Leaves an almost fruity flavor (pear maybe?) as well as that bready barley taste. A very tasty beer, but at 11%, this one’s a sipper.

Bottle, Beer Ritz, Leeds. 2009 Vintage. Poured a copper colour with a nice looking off white head. Caramel malt and big juicy hop aroma with butterscotch and orange peel notes. All these elements were present in the flavour along with some spiciness . Some dryness towards the finish. The 11% alcohol is pretty well masked and I enjoyed this one. Would like to tuck a bottle away.

deep reddish pour, small amount of off white head, little carbonation...super malty, very sweet, boozy, not much bitterness from hops

Bottle. Pours a clear amber beer with an offwhite head. The aroma is sweet and fruits. The flavor is fruit with alcohol. The palate is surpricingly smooth and dry. Overall a great beer.

This thing is amazing. It actually tastes more like an Imperial or Double IPA than a BarleyWine. The pour is a golden red with a little of a white head. The nose is powerful; full of pine from the hops and a very sweet malt from the barley. There are hints of caramel, and citrus as well. The flavor is wonderful, sweet malts and then huge hops. I tasted licorice and cognac??? The palate was oily and stuck around awhile. Great one Stone! I need to cellar one of these...

Aroma: very powerful, fruity, grape-like. Fresh, majestic hops, heavy malt, figs, prunes, cinnamon, caramelized sugar. The sweet, deep malty profile is very balanced up the fresh hops, reeking of lemon, grape and leaves. Very, very nice indeed.
Flavour: huge! Sweetness hits you, and a sledgehammer of bitterness, not half a second later. I can taste wild raspberries, banana, licorice-like malt, great juicy hops. Very big-bodied, slightly acrid and noble. The aftertaste is very sweet, but again it is balanced up by the good amount of hops. Pears and cognac can also be sensed in the aftertaste. To be quite honest, the sweetness makes it almost too big. I think I would prefered it a tad bit drier.
Appearance: slightly dim apricot with the style-typical yellowish head. The head diminshes rahter quickly, leaving a thin foam-film that tells of the sweetness and cloys to the glass.
Palate: oily, fluffy, big. Madeira-like. Very nice sparkling quality. Runs off the tongue like oily, sweet satin.

Bomber, 2007 release. Pours a reddish honey color with a very thin white head. Sweet malts are immediately present, along with honey, raspberries, and raisins. A little alcohol in the background, along with some subtle piney and citrus hops; I had imagined they’d be more up front since this is a Stone brew, but I’m sure they’ve mellowed with age. The first sip demonstrates otherwise. Alcohol and astringent hops are present initially, like licking bitter sap off a pinecone...in a good way. Rich mouthfeel, creamy, slightly sticky. As the bitterness fades, balancing sweet dried fruits flood in. I didn’t have one of these; in ’07; if the hop presence has mellowed, this makes me wonder what it was like in ’07. This thing keeps growing on me with every sip, especially as it warms, wish I had another.

Wow, this is incredible. Right from the tap at the Ginger Man in Austin, TX. Had two. Sweet, but not too sweet. Grass notes, a little malty but definitely feel the hops. Incredible barley wine.