John Barleycorn - Mad River Brewing Company, Blue Lake
Style:
Barleywine
Serving Type:
Bottle
Alcohol by Volume:
9.1%
Aroma:
Boozy caramel and toffee. Very sweet and very strong in alcohol
Appearance:
Deep dark reddish brown, almost black body with no head
Flavor:
Sweet and resiny at first, malts come through mid palate and bring bitterness. Finish is a little metalic and the alcohol becomes much more obvious
Mouthfeel:
Full bodied. The bitterness makes this a little rough around the edges at times
This bottle of Mad River's John Barleycorn has been in my basement for a while now. Honestly, I'd forgotten about it... I picked up this bottle in mid-Summer 2010 while out of state. I really didn't know anything about the beer itself, it was just something I couldn't get back home... so I picked up a bottle. The label is pretty plain, it's black and white with an etching style image of a scene from the folk song. One thing I did notice on the label this time around that I must have missed before is that this beer is "Celebrating the harvest of 2008" ...so it's got a little age on it. At 9.1% alcohol I'm sure this Barleywine has held up, but this is a style that can be really hit or miss with me so I'm anxious to try it and see how this California Barleywine stacks up.
The John Barleycorn pours a very dark reddish brown color, it's almost black with no head at all. Other than being a bit darker than other Barleywines I've had, there isn't too much worth noting about the appearance of the John Barleycorn. The aroma on the other hand is another story.
Mad River packed a lot of sweet smelling malt in this beer. You can smell this beer coming from a mile away. As soon as I popped the cork I could smell a sweet and bitter malt Barleywine, it was a little surprising. Pouring this beer into my glass filled the room with that same aroma. When I sat down with my snifter I got a lot of boozy toffee and caramel, this beer smells really sweet and really potent.
The flavor of the John Barleycorn was a bit of a let down. It definitely tastes like a Barleywine, but it's got a bitterness that only gets more and more distracting as the beer warms. It's not all bad, there's a lot of sweetness up front and a strong alcohol finish. The major downfall of this beer is that bitterness and lack of complexity... There's the sweet up front, bitterness in the middle and then a metallic finish with loads of booze. It's not horrible, but it's not a Barleywine I'd bother tracking down in the future.
Comments
Post new comment