Stone Old Guardian (Vintages 2004 and later)

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

22oz bottle. Vintage 2007. Pours cloudy, dark amber with a good sized, tan head, good lace. Smells big and sweet, caramelly malty. Lots of alcohol as well. Tastes of alcohol and sweet, syrupy caramel malts and some hop spice. Full body, good carbonation.
2004. on-tap at Naja’s a couple months back. Pours hazy orange with a thin white head, specks of lace. Smells malty and caramelly sweet with a slight hop spice. Tastes boozy, followed by sweet malts and a slight hop spiciness. Full body, decent carbonation. 836315=3.5

Had a bottle of the early limited 2006 release. The aroma is of fruit. Pours a reddish golden. The flavor is fruity and very hoppy with a slight cloying finish.

old rating: 7/4/8/4/17 - 4.0 (limited early 2008 release). 2009 vintage pour is a cloudy brown-orange with a medium size beige head, and excellent lacing. smell of sweet fruit (pear, apple) some roasted nuts, some caramel, spice, and grain in the back. taste is thick, semi-tart, burnt caramel, roasted nuts, malt, some fruit, and a touch of citrus, ends a little dry and a little bitter, gets sweeter as it warms.

So I’m crushing with my Honkeybra, aight, and he’s like, "I wanna hear the description." So I pull out my microscope and read the whole thing off and by the end he’s almost done with the brew. Needless to say, he was in a much more intense mood than I by the end of the description.

Pours out an amber color with basically no head. It has a very strong aroma of alcohol. The taste is somewhat bitter with an overwhelming amount of alcohol taste. I’d reccoment Old Horizontal instead, much better barley wine.

Tap at Stone, ’05 vintage. Poured kind of light for barley wine, but it was quite a beer. Super dark fruity, malty beer. Taste was much the same, very smooth and easy to drink, this would be very dangerous. The alcohol was very well hidden, great stuff.

2007 bottle. Pours out a nice clear coppery color with a very small head. aroma is nice. It has sweet hits along with a nice malt balance. Flavor is very sweet with nice caramel undertones. Alcohol was very well hidden. I also had a 2004 bottle. The beer held up very well. Seemed to be a bit sweeter and nearly all alcohol taste is gone. This is a very nice beer, then again, isnt all Stone beers very nice.

2005- Poursa clear orange/amber hue with a small, lightly frothed off-white head with mediocre lacing. Aromas of roasted nuts, a little cereal, hints of oranges and spice. Mouthfeel is medium to full-bodied with a lingering finish. Very bitter on contact with the tongue. Favors of spruce, a little perfumy, and finishes with a soapy residue. MMMM.....Not up to par with last years, but will have to age a few as this brew seems to have some sediment unlike most of the big brews from stone as of late. 2004--I don’t think I was the biggest fan of the old ’old guardian’ but now I can say I love it. The new recipe is just what the doctor ordered. Hoppy, malty, with a good flavor of malts coming through. 8/4/8/5/17-4.2