Bottle. Hazy amber liquid with small off-white head. Aroma of toffee, caramel, port wine, oak, vanilla, coconut and bread. Taste is light sweet and light to medium bitter with notes of vanilla, caramel, toffee and wood. Medium bodied with low to medium carbonation.

Bottle split with JF, 20/04/13, from an IP trade with George. Lightly hazed dark amber with a thin beige film of a head. Nose is dark caramel, vanilla, brown sugars, almonds, dark fruit, waft of booze. Taste comprises Dark toffee, light chocolate, booze, marsh mallows, brown sugars, syrup & figs, toasted malt, butterscotch popcorn. Full bodied, dine carbonation, boozey finish. A more than decent barley wine!

Bottle at a tasting in Stockholm, April 2013. (thanks Johan) Dark amber with a medium head. Aroma of toffee, some vanilla, malt and some dried fruit. The taste was sweet with vanilla, toffee, malt, fruit, pine and notes of oak. Thick body with a smooth mouthfeel. A very nice beer.

Pours a deep, warm shade of amber. Small, light beige head, which dissipates to nothing. Filtered. The aroma is dominated by rich caramel and toffee malt flavors. There’s some apricot, coconut, sugar cane, almonds and cotton candy. The taste is sweet and luxurious. It’s pretty much a delicious barleywine with light barrel notes. I’m mostly getting vanilla and a light woodiness from the barrel-aging. There’s some fairly subtle bourbon in the background, but it meshes into the other notes quite nicely. Some booze in the aroma, but it mostly just warms up the palate once you take a sip. The mouthfeel is smooth and thick, but it never got cloying for me. This is one of the best barrel-aged beers that I’ve had from FW, probably my second favorite after Sticky Monkey (? - one of the barleywines that was used in a recent FW anniversary beer). It does a particularly good job of showing FW’s light touch with barrel-aging. Great stuff.

Bomber. Pours murky orange-brown with a small collapsing beige head. Aroma is decadent caramel, oaky, raisins, molasses; now that I smell this, I know what a huge component this is to the Firestone Walker Anniversary beers--it smells as delicious as the best of them. Flavor is sweet and savory with a lingering licorice-tinged finish. Body seems a little thin compared to the superior Anniversary beers. I say the Anniversary beers are superior, but that doesn’t mean this is swill; this is truly delicious and masterful--it just seems obvious that it’s but one component that makes those aforementioned beers so good.

22 oz. bottle, pours a fairly clean but hazy dark copper with a small beige head. Aroma of caramel, booze, brown sugar and some butterscotch. Flavour is very rich, with thick caramel, butterscotch, loads of alcohol (without burning too much), and some light notes of dark fruits. Very complex, hugely viscous mouthfeel and well-balanced. Excellent heavy-hitter here. Firestone Walker have succeeded again.

Sampled at GABF. Pours a cloudy amber with some creamy beige head. Nice, vanilla nose, coconut, burnt sugar. Sweet, caramel flavor, vanilla, malt, coconut. Great woodiness to it too. Full bodied, lightly sticky finish. Very well blended, very smooth.