Barleywarned

Barley wine season has closed again. We know when Christmas fits best, but barley wine owns a spot on the coldest days of winter. I have visited the wine & spirits store and gone home with a few fine bottles, mostly craft brews. Barley wine is a rare treat, a strong ale packed with rich malts and usually a strong array of hops.

But I can’t crack them open. I shove them in the corner and forget about them. In my beer stash reside about a dozen bottles of various size and vintage. The stash ranges back to 2007 thanks to a bottle of Brooklyn Monster that inexplicably arrived at Grand Cru in late 2010. Elsewhere sit a few vintages of Stone Old Guardian Off-Year releases and bottles from Pennsylvania to San Diego to Norway (more on those in a minute).

It’s British by nature, best when closer to room temperature. American versions tend to push the hop element to bitter heights and experiment with bottle conditioning and alternate yeast strains.

More than 16 years ago, my old friend Scott in Mentor, Ohio gave me the last bottle of a six-pack he no longer wanted. In mid-summer, I was introduced to Old Nick, the first barley wine I ever tasted. I remember the distinct malty taste and remember nearly choking it down. It was a devilish ale, tasty but not one I planned to revisit. What saved Old Nick was its relatively low alcohol content for barley wine, 7.2 percent ABV.

What hurt it most was sampling it on a day with the mercury in the mid-80s and high humidity. Now I know it would have been perfect when Lake Effect snow blanketed our town from November to March. That experience colored my opinion of barley wine till I tasted a fresh Sierra Nevada Bigfoot, which skewed it further. Old Nick fit the winter, but lacked the fresh-hop punch of Bigfoot. It dropped a flavor bomb that I could not handle. I tried that one in the middle of a Lake Erie snowstorm, and would not approach it again for another decade.

A first-time barley wine drinker should beware. The ale is intense, especially the fresh versions that land in bars and at retail. They can be intimidating palate crushers. I wouldn’t recommend any start on IPAs with anything from Stone or any double IPA, because the experience can be off-putting. I do the same with barley wine.

Unobtainium comes from Huntsville, Alabama’s Straight to Ale. Billed as a barrel-aged old ale, it fits the “close enough” test for a barley wine. An 11.5 percent ABV doesn’t hurt either.

 The nose boasts a brilliant clash between creamy and bitter. Tucked in its center is a dose of maple syrup, roasted nuts and toffee. Warmth allows the syrup tones to mellow into a subtler molasses with traces of vanilla, oak, clove and pine. Hops only add a corona of bitterness to this malt bomb. This old ale finishes oily and viscous, a pleasant recovery from an avalanche of bold flavors.

Would Unobtanium benefit from a few more months of hibernation? Possibly. I had not tasted anything from Straight to Ale, and Unobtanium certainly stood out. The extra barrel time sanded down Unobtanium’s sharp edges before Straight to Ale bottled it.

Usually, a small-batch barley wine tastes fine on tap. Years ago I tasted something from Columbus’ Elevator Brewing Company on draught, and it was amazing. At the time, I described it as “like paint thinner, but good.” My palate has improved, and I still remember that brew with hints of dates to go along with the nuts and maple notes.

Anything in the bottle, I ignore for 12 months. While I would like to sample some at six months, the humid Tennessee summer makes barley wine unpalatable. When it comes to dark ales, I adhere to the seasonality of beers. When picking up a barley wine, I’m thinking about next winter more than any season.

Now I wait a year on Bigfoot, and it never fails me. The hops still offer a little zing, and the malts have mellowed. Sierra Nevada has downgraded it from a six-pack to a four-pack, ending many a six-year vertical tasting. But really, four is enough.

Take Sierra Nevada Anniversary Jack and Ken’s Ale, a black barley wine. After nearly three years under cork, the brew pours out with a perfect head and laces, plus a surprisingly aggressive effervescence. The nose augments its natural booziness with a first of molasses and cocoa powder. Roasted nuts and dry chocolate explode from the opaque body. Some faint traces of the whole cone hops emerge, but they are echoes. There’s little leafiness left. No one would confuse it for one of Belgium’s many strong dark ales. Aside from the darker malt selections, Jack and Ken’s is implicitly a barley wine. I could not have imagined opening it any sooner.

There are exceptions. Nogne #100 drinks smoothly right out of the gate. Yeast residue on the bottle bottom reveals that #100 already went under significant development. The malt dominates, but there is enough hop and flavor to keep the taste buds guessing. Molasses, chocolate, toffee and raisins run into a slightly hoppy finale, coating the palate with a nice, leafy afterglow. The use of Columbus, Chinook and Centennial hops pushes this strong ale beyond the garden-variety barley wine.

Nogne beers always come with a certain freshness thanks to their local Grinstead water; no matter what brewers throw into a mash tun, water source is always the most important ingredient and can produce a standout beer (see Bernardus, Saint). Creamy and viscous, this barley wine doesn’t taste anywhere near its 10 percent ABV; nothing betrays that alcohol. A faint hint of anise and nuts lingers long after the beer is gone. I scarcely had this bottle three months and am glad I didn’t wait any longer.

Bottle conditioning often takes years to work its magic. That’s what I hope with Old Abomination from Victory. The alcohol content of barley wine plays a long game. I cannot fathom opening that Thomas Hardy Ale, knowing there are no future vintages (unless I am mistaken, and I would be glad to be mistaken). Lee’s Harvest Ale or Fuller’s Vintage Ale could get cracked sooner since they still arrive stateside.

Anyone testing the barley wine waters would be wise to hunt out an older bottle still on the shelves, hold it till the new vintage arrives, then pour the two against each other. If the bottle has a cork, that’s even better. That way you can know new and old alike, and know which one you favor.