Try?
Re-buy?
Lately, I’ve been drinking a lot of barleywine.
Barleywine, of course, isn’t really wine at all. It’s beer, albeit very
strong beer. The original barleywines were brewed in England, and got their
name from the fact that their high alcohol content seemingly approached that
of wine. As a result, their complexity levels shot up, too.
Here in America, Fritz Maytag brought the style home way back in 1975 with Old Foghorn. That beer, as much as I love it, was not as revolutionary as Sierra Nevada Bigfoot , which introduced American beer lovers to a barleywine with a hop blast.
And then you have Heavy Seas Below Decks Barleywine Style Ale, a tenth anniversary celebration beer from Baltimore’s Clipper City brewing. True to the style, this one is up there in alcohol content at 10% by volume. One of these, then, has about twice as much alcohol as those Budweisers you really shouldn’t be drinking all the time.
Anyway, Clipper City brews this one with lots of chewy carapils and crystal malt added to the perfunctory pale malt mash. Fuggle and Golding hops are true to an English barleywine, but Magnums from the Pacific Northwest are thrown in to add some domestic flare.
Heavy Seas Below Decks Barleywine Style Ale pours to a deep ruby red color with a thick foamy head of tightly packed bubbles forming atop the liquid. The nose gives is promising here, teasing the senses with notes of vanilla and fruit.
A sip reveals firm chocolaty malt and some dark fruity notes of black cherry, raisin, and prune. A definite warming alcohol burn ascends into the finish, where a bit of that vanilla we got in the nose rears its head. And while this isn’t a resiny-piney hop monster like Bigfoot, there’s definitely some grassy hop bitterness in the finish. The beer does seem to peter out a bit in the finish, however, thinning a bit to my taste.
Overall, this is a fairly rich barleywine that accents malt over hops, more in the English style than the American. But I think it lacks the “oomph” I’m looking for in the style; it could do with a bit more body, complexity, and flavor diversity. And I don’t say this because this isn’t an uber-hopped barleywine, by any means. I just think that other brewers manage to accent the malt with a lot more going on in their beer; Flying Dog’s Horn Dog Barleywine is a great example.
Below Decks is released each December, and I’m commenting on the 2006 vintage. Clipper City says the beer will improve with age, but I am not so sure I agree. In any event, at $7.99 for a four-pack, I’ll pass on buying more. For an extra buck, six bottles of the amazingly complex Bigfoot is a much better buy.
Here in America, Fritz Maytag brought the style home way back in 1975 with Old Foghorn. That beer, as much as I love it, was not as revolutionary as Sierra Nevada Bigfoot , which introduced American beer lovers to a barleywine with a hop blast.
And then you have Heavy Seas Below Decks Barleywine Style Ale, a tenth anniversary celebration beer from Baltimore’s Clipper City brewing. True to the style, this one is up there in alcohol content at 10% by volume. One of these, then, has about twice as much alcohol as those Budweisers you really shouldn’t be drinking all the time.
Anyway, Clipper City brews this one with lots of chewy carapils and crystal malt added to the perfunctory pale malt mash. Fuggle and Golding hops are true to an English barleywine, but Magnums from the Pacific Northwest are thrown in to add some domestic flare.
Heavy Seas Below Decks Barleywine Style Ale pours to a deep ruby red color with a thick foamy head of tightly packed bubbles forming atop the liquid. The nose gives is promising here, teasing the senses with notes of vanilla and fruit.
A sip reveals firm chocolaty malt and some dark fruity notes of black cherry, raisin, and prune. A definite warming alcohol burn ascends into the finish, where a bit of that vanilla we got in the nose rears its head. And while this isn’t a resiny-piney hop monster like Bigfoot, there’s definitely some grassy hop bitterness in the finish. The beer does seem to peter out a bit in the finish, however, thinning a bit to my taste.
Overall, this is a fairly rich barleywine that accents malt over hops, more in the English style than the American. But I think it lacks the “oomph” I’m looking for in the style; it could do with a bit more body, complexity, and flavor diversity. And I don’t say this because this isn’t an uber-hopped barleywine, by any means. I just think that other brewers manage to accent the malt with a lot more going on in their beer; Flying Dog’s Horn Dog Barleywine is a great example.
Below Decks is released each December, and I’m commenting on the 2006 vintage. Clipper City says the beer will improve with age, but I am not so sure I agree. In any event, at $7.99 for a four-pack, I’ll pass on buying more. For an extra buck, six bottles of the amazingly complex Bigfoot is a much better buy.
And remember, try a new beer today, and drink outside the box.
*Pricing data accurate at time of review or latest update. For reference only, based on actual price paid by reviewer.
(B)=Bottled
(D)=Draft
