Four Aces #2 Barley Wine

Bottle from Burg, BB 09 2018, 33 cl sample. Clear amber color, short frothy head. Aroma of butterscotch, cookie and slight spicy notes. Bit sweet toffee in taste, molasses, treacle, some alcohol bite. Bit one dimensional.

Pours hazy orange with a small tan head. Aroma is toasted malty. Sweet, toasted malty. Caramelish. Sweet, toasted and lingering caramelish finish.

Hazy golden colour. Aroma is strong with biscuity, sweet malts. Flavour is malty and syrupy. Not overly sweet. There’s enough bitterness to keep it in balance.

Tap. Hazy orange color with white head. Aroma is candy, toffee, raisins, orange nectar. Taste is toffee, raisins. Oily mouthfeel. Nice.

Sampled @ Zythos Bier Festival 2017. Trübes dunkel orange goldenes Bier. Geruch kräftig süß malzig, Obst. Geschmack kräftig malzig, trocken, reifes Obst, holzig, alkoholisch.

At Zythos 2017. Pours almost clear amber. Aroma is sweaty socks, old laundry. Some malts behind it. Body is medium, lots of caramel sweetness, typically barley wine, low bitterness, almost no carbonation. Palate lingers sweetly. Besides the nose quite good.

Hell alkoholischer Beginn, süßlich. Unsüffig, trocken gerstig, nicht unbedingt ausbalanciert. 8/8/7/8//8

Newish barleywine by Het Nest, which has been good to excellent in classic Belgian ales so far but with this brand apparently seeks to venture into the Anglo-Saxon styles that have propelled the international craft beer revolution. Medium thick, off-white, lightly lacing head, retaining as a moussy rim and a couple of flat islands in the middle, above an initially clear, deep orange blonde beer with coppery hue, full-fledged hazy amber with sediment. Aroma of dried apricot, tamarillo, mead, sweet red curry, marmelade, ginger ale, red apple, pear brandy, candi syrup, lightly toasted bread, ripe peach, peanuts, damp hay, sweet cherry tomato, fainter hints of chicken soup, vanilla, buttercups, strawberry juice, mashed potato and even some vague ’rust’ hinting at oxidation, though the bottle dates from last year. Clean fruitiness in the onset, subtle pineapple and candied banana hints surrounding a sweet peach and ripe pear core with a thin sourish redcurrant accent immediately following, softish carbonation, supple and slick mouthfeel, full but not betraying its high ABV actually, a tad soapy, not quite as vinous as one would expect from a beer explicitly labelled a ’barleywine’. Sweet malt body, very caramelly with an ever so subtle toasted edge, slightly nutty, with the ’dry fruit sweetness’ surfing on top to a warming finish in which the caramelly and eventually even honeyish malt and residual ’white’ sugar sweetness keep prevailing, while down below a dash of mildly spicy and herbal hop bitterishness is added; esters fade away and phenols remain relatively silent. A calvados-like alcohol warmth shows up in the end - as expected - but does not become tiring considering the peculiarities of the intended style, though I do feel a certain obnoxious wryness on the root of my tongue after swallowing. I am in doubt if this fits the basic structural properties of an English style barleywine: this feels like a Belgian tripel with more caramelly and residual sugary sweetness and in that sense a kind of Bush Ambrée epigone. Falls short in complexity and vinous mouthfeel for this style; I am also unsure whether this gets any better with ageing as a really solid barleywine tends to do (this is one of very few styles I prefer aged for at least a year), since this relatively young sample already seems to exhibit subtle signs of onsetting oxidation and it lacks a bit in body and structure to sufficiently support this in the long run. Technically completely flawless - as all Nest beers - with the required ’cleanness’ for this style, contrary to some other Belgian attempts, but needs more body, thickness, oiliness and, more than anything, complexity. I expected a lot more from this, especially after hugely enjoying the BIPA in this Four Aces side project.

Rood/bruin met witte fijne kraag. Sroma van geaan, mout, ziet, fruit, rozijn en dat was dan ook gelijk het beste aan het bier. Qua smaak is het matig tot redelijk metalig/ijzeren smerig bitter, verder nig wat geaan, volmondig NEE, zelden zo’n smerige barley wine gehad.

25th March 2017
Hazy orange - gold beer, tidy cream colour head. Palate is smooth and mildly dry, decent fine minerally carbonation. Semi sweet malts, some cream. Smooth pine. Orange squash and smooth marmalade. Floral orange. Light creamy sweet finish. Easy going sweet barleywine.