Belligerent Bloke (9%)
Angel City Brewing Company in Los Angeles, California, United States 🇺🇸
Barley Wine - Barley Regular|
Score
7.15
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Appearance - 10 | Aroma - 8 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 7.5
Deep ruby and rich copper coloured body with a nice, three centimetre tall tan head. Aroma of tons of malt, caramel, toffee, earth, apricots and stone fruits, some honey and a bit of spice - oh yeah, a lot of alcohol too! Full-bodied; Strong rich malty flavour with caramel, honey, toffee, grain, rye, nuts, earth, stone and pit fruits and finishing with a ton of sweetness, mostly from the caramel and honey flavours. Aftertaste is definitely rich, with a lot of complexity stemming from the malt and the residual sugars and finishing with some spices, a touch of belgian yeast strains and a hefty alcohol punch. Overall, a very nice beer - but this is much more of a Belgian Strong than a Barley Wine, and regardless of style, a deeply malty and caramel-centric beer with a lot of character and depth and quite a bit of alcohol - which somehow seems way more than 9,0%! I sampled this 65 cL bottle purchased from BevMo! in Manhattan Beach, California on 23-February-2016 for US$7,19 sampled at home after just returning from California (San Diego) today on 15-December-2016.
Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 8.5
Tap at the California Brewers Showcase Festival. Nitro pour is copper with a large yellow/beige head. Aroma is spicy - not sure what - probably includes some nutmeg. This tastes like an unusually flavored barley wine. Treacle/brown sugar, but some subtle spice that the brewer jokingly referred to as pie spice. Whatever, it is really nice.