I'll never be able to try all the beers in the world; there's just too many and more and more being made all the time. But that's a good thing, it's good to live in a land of plenty. But there are also some types of beer that I have never tried -- and that's a bad thing, so I'm going to try to rectify that at least somewhat. Tomorrow I plan to have my first Black IPA, (and for those of you who don't know, IPA stands for India Pale Ale, so I'm very interested to see how a beer can be both black and pale), and today I'm going to introduce myself to Barleywine.
Or am I? Now that I look at the label of this bottle of Old Foghorn a little closer, I see it says "Barleywine Style" not "Barleywine". Ordinarily I wouldn't think anything of it, but this is from Anchor Brewing Company, who already got off on the wrong foot with me by trying to slip me an Old Milwaukee in the guise of their flagship brew Anchor Steam. So I don't trust them completely, but I'm willing to let bygones be bygones.
All right, I know nothing about barleywines, so this time I'm going in with a true Zen mind.
APPEARANCE: Dark copper in color, pillowy white head that is in no hurry to go anywhere. Lace that you could make light-blocking curtains out of, bubbles that mosey up to the top.
AROMA: You can definitely smell the alcohol, some fruitiness -- maybe grapefruit.
TASTE: Very interesting combination of flavors. First alcohol, then hops and finally -- and I don't know how they do this, since I understand it the back of the tongue is where you experience hop bitterness the most -- a malty taste at the finish.
MOUTHFEEL: This one lingers with you, and you can feel it warming your frozen Wintery bones.
BURP TASTE: So far no burps. Kind of surprising because there are a lot of bubbles.
DRINKABILITY: I really like this. A great Winter warmer. Maybe I need to give Anchor Steam another try.
Merry Christmas, y'all. Don't let the Krampus get you.
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