Victory Old Horizontal

Bottle. Smooth pour with a delightful ruby-amber color, and a very light cream head which is slow to dissipate. Initial hop kick gets delightful upon second taste. None too discernible aroma. Warm alcohol finish, thanks to the ABV. Darn good.

One of the sweetest barleywines I’ve ever had. Beautiful rust coloration in the glass and smells extremely sweet and fruity as well as malty. Very good dark fruit sweetness mixed with malt and maybe a touch of hops make this a pleasure to drink. Little boozy on the finish but still a really good one. Got another bottle that I think I will let age a while longer.

12 oz bottle courtesy of radiomgb. (Purchased 06/30/06). Cloudy amber-orange with a lot of sediment. Orange-brown head fades quickly to a ring. The aroma contains American hops, alcohol, and malt, in that order. (In that odour?) Nice. There are a tonne of hops in the flavour, as well, but there is a strong enough malt backbone to keep the hops from being overwhelming. The combination brings out some nice sweet citrus, caramel, and just a bit of pine and licorice. Thick, creamy, full body. Aptly named.

Pours a nice reddish brown with a small head. Aroma of fruit, sugar, some hoppiness. Nice sweetness, good bitterness, finishes with a light nice alcohol burn. Good stuff.

Very sweet aroma. Very fruity. I am very impressed by this actually. I can smell the yeast slightly. I also cannot help to mention I smell figs like crazy. i bought the beer about a month ago. I also let it sit out a while before I tried it, that way I could taste everything. The beer has a nice bubbly head. The beer looks like fig juice, if there was such a thing. Very caramel almost a hint of purple in this thing. I cannot say the color impresses me too much, but still a nice looking beer. When you hold it up to the light you get that nice caramel brown color to really show through. Wow, that beer is very malty and smooth. It has an awesome palate. I can say that this beer deserves the 5/5 palate rating. It is almost silky. Leaves a nice smooth feeling on your tongue. The flavor is a bit interesting. The ABV in this beer is high, but I feel that for how smooth the palata is considering the matls, the alcohol should not show up that much. Very pronounced fruit flavors. The fruit taste just sits on your tongue, and the bitterness is balanced damn near perfectly with the malts. I can taste the figs more than anything. I also can taste the caramel malts, but I am happier to taste the fruits than the malts. I am just concentrated on how well they hid the bitterness. I love IPAs, check my profile, but some barley wines are targeted towards making the beer annoyingly bitter. This has the malt balance it needs. Very delicious beer, and worth drinking again.

12 oz. bottle. Pours a reddish orange color with a 1/2" off white head. Not much in the way of lacing. Initial flavor was quite hoppy with dark fruits in the background. As my glass warmed flavors of malt, dark candy (Choc covered cherries ?) & more dark fruits, dates,figs, came out of the background and into the forefront. Quite complex and delicous.

lovely rich nut brown, big lingering tan head. aroma: tons of toasty malt, chocolate, some coffee, yeast. rich, somewhat viscous mouthfeel. persistent but moderate hop presence over massive caramel malt flavors, chocolate and figs. hops and malt linger on the tongue

vertical six with a 04,05, and 06. Always one of my favorite barley wines... will see how the vertical stack goes. Started with the Dec 14 2004. pour was a bit scary at the bottom, bottom 1/3 seemed chunky... in the glass it was a ruddy dark amber with cloudy sediment on the bottom. a small head that dissipates. aroma is dominated by a caramel malt that has a bit of sweet. mouthful has a pleasant caramel sweet up front, then quickly fades to a bitter mouthful that lingers... not a great aged specimen for sure. Bottled Dec 22 2005, This one pours with out the scary lumpiness at the end. Still significant sediment. color and head is the same as the 04. aroma is similar to the 04 but with a bit of hop mixed in. mouthful is smooth with caramel, fig, raisons and a little hoppy finish with a alcohol warming. much better than the 04! 2006 is enjoy before Dec 12 2011. same color same small head with little sediment and no chunky pour. the hops have moved up front in the aroma but the caramel and malt is still there. mouthful is crisp with with a balance malt and hop palate. This has a barley wine back bone with a bit to zesty citrus hop to it. very nice... i think the younger this gets the better it is. it has always been a favorite barley wine, and that is perhaps why it never lasts in the cellar, and turns out to be a good thing. The hop character moves to the background as it ages, and a hoppy barley wine is what makes the Old H special. a great barley wine, just drink it young!