7.1

Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 7.5

Draught at MW’s 8th anniverary, 10/17/15.
Wonderfully bright appearance shows an amber liquid topped by a light beige head with moderate to strong retention.
Big caramel and toffee notes collide with vanilla, leafy, lightly citric hops and lots of fruity yeast esters (cherry and apple primarily, mixing with the malt and alcohol to produce candied-like notes). As far as non-barrel aged barleywines go, this nails it, with clean, round, succulent malt character, apparent but not overdone hoppiness and alcohol that is contained but also used to create interesting aromatics.
In the flavor it’s richly malty, with plentiful sweet caramel and toffee, big citrus hop notes (with a moderate amount of resulting bitterness) and candied fruit notes. Hints of alcohol add spiciness and vanilla character while ample carbonation makes it about as drinkable as you’re going to get for a barleywine of its size (still undrinkable....IMHO). Clean, in great condition and really well done.
That I couldn’t drink more than about three sips is irrelevant as I just can’t drink barleywines anymore. While the alcohol does bother me, to a degree, it’s really just the monotonous caramel/toffee/rich honey malt that I can’t deal with. Absolutely no finesse, charm or complexity to these things. And that’s just an inherent flaw with the style, I think. Even something like Bells Batch 6000, which I think I have at a 4.7, I can still remember vividly. And it wasn’t any different than this, fresh. Hoppy as all hell (it had more hop complexity, but also more resin as well) and just no malt depth/complexity. So take my rating with a grain of salt. I guess if you just love booze, bitterness and rich medium malts, than this is about as good as it’s going to get, barleywine-wise. Tried to be fair and give it an objective score as opposed to about a 2.0, which is the subjective score I’d give it.
2009 batch 1 on draught at 9th anniversary.
Obviously the age here has calmed it down significantly. And as with most MW beers, it has oxidized impossibly minimally. I don't know how they do it, but this stuff still seems like it would be only 3 or 4 years old. Except for the extreme mildness of it. Raisin, fig, cherry, caramel, light orange rind....rich and rewarding with minimal but spritzy carbonation, no alcohol and tons of fruitiness and malt lingering on the finish.