Fred from the Wood
(has 3 batches)

Bottle. Aroma very much of vanilla. Cloudy orange colour, small head. The flavour is nice, there is some vanilla, fruit, wood and cigar box. A bit of sourness, but that balances the sweetness. Good mouthfeel, probably due to the alcohol content.

Bottle (sampled at the Duesseldorf Gathering): Light amber coloured, small lacing off-white head; strong sweet-bitter flavour, light to medium bodied, sticky MF; strong, sweet-bitter, cough-syrup-like finish........

Bottle at the Düsseldorf Gathering. Muddy, amber body. Off-white, fizzy head. Very intense aroma of honey, flowers, vanilla, wine, barrels, orange, ... even somewhat too intense, reminds me in some kind of way also like jam smells. Moderately bitter, moderately sweet flavour. Nice complex flavour of vanilla and fruits, but not overwhelming.

Getrunken beim RB Treffen in Düsseldorf am 6.1.07 Leicht säuerlicher Geruch. Sehr fruchtiger Geschmack, dabei teilweise süß, ganz im Gegenteil des Erschnüffelten. Dieses Bier ist sehr voluminös und bleibt noch lange im Mund schmeckbar. Test vom 7.1.2007, Gebinde: Glasflasche Noten: 10,11,8,10,11,11 - 10,30

12oz Bottle Pours a murky light beige yellowish tan. Small creamy offwhite head that lasts and leaves sheets of lacing. Aroma is a quite sweet, fruity, apricots, carmel and soft woody overtones. Noticeably abscent is any bittering hop notes. Flavor is more upfront wood with spicy, flowery notes as well. Moderate body, very lively carbonation and a smokey quite dry trailer. Interesting and unusual for the style.

RB release bottle, an incredibly generous bonus from RooftopRogue, shared with SuIIy on 9/2/06.
Exuberantly frothy, thick-cream-colored head piles atop a surprisingly dark, copper-beige body with some strong tan highlights (Fred being strikingly light in color for a bw). Medium to medium-high clarity, leaving the sediment behind, with fierce carbonation rushing upwards. Retention is strong, and moderate lacing is created as the head recedes. Appearance is always top-notch at HOTD.
Grainy wood notes immediately rush forth from the glass, dry and slightly sharp, blending coconut-like notes, some esterized alcohol and an oily, dry, toasty oak and cigar-note that lends just a hint of darkness. But massively fruity pineapple jumps in to the mix, lightening things and adding a very intriguing fruitiness. Peaches, nectarines and the like join the fray, and throughout it all, a supple, rich, juicy-sweet pale maltiness helps deliver the support/balance. Some dry tannins still break through, somewhat, with light paperiness and slightly acidic/astringent vanilla. I certainly wouldn’t call it balanced in the aroma, by any means, but the pale malts, luscious, nearly tropical fruitiness and slight cigar-like edge is just too intriguing and unique to leave behind. Not to mention, the strength of the aroma is quite high.
Continued use of toasty, earthy, dry oak is apparent in the flavor, with a graininess that chips at the palate. It slowly eases in to the sweet malts, but all the while a touch of sharp alcohol hangs in the background. Dry fruitiness abounds, which really sets this apart from most BA barleywines, and the yellow fruit nature of it really helps keep things fairly lively in nature. Carbonation is high to begin, but evens out over time, though it still breaks the malt cohesion perhaps a bit too much, tipping the balance to the more dry, tannic, grainy flavors. But you can’t deny that any juiciness (not to be mistaken with syrupiness) in a barleywine, no matter how fleeting, is quite delightful. That being said, I still think the barrel is a bit too dominant.

A hazy amber beer with a thin though dense off-white head. The aroma is sweet alcoholic combined with notes of caramel. The flavor is sweet with powerful notes of alcohol and caramel. And the body is thick - a bit like drinking a mixture of molten caramel and alcohol. Nice Barley Wine.