Bottle from the Kernel rotbox - cheers Toby, split at Bruce’s pad, 28/05/14. Lightly hazed golden orange with a moderate of white swirl and edgework. Nose is fruit loaf, dull fruits, caramel, spice, pumpkin seed. Taste comprises caramel, dark fruit rinds, honey, light spice, straw, sugars. Medium + body, fine carbonation, hint of booze in the close. So so barley wine and I doubt that was due to it being plucked from the box of rot.

Bottle shared in London - many thanks to the Kernel rotbox and Courier Colin. Pours perfectly clear, bright gold with a creamy, off-white head. The nose has lots of pale bread, honey, biscuits, light hay. Medium sweet flavor with more honey, biscuity and lightly doughy pale bread, light bitter hay, straw. Medium to full bodied with fine carbonation. Warming finish with sugary pale bread, light grassy bitterness, faint caramel, alcohol, peach. A sort of ’golden barley wine’. Pretty nice overall.

Bottle from the Kernel Rotbox. It pours clear golden. With a small white head. The nose wood varnish, pear drops, apple, candy, earth and bread. The taste is sweet, toasty, earth, candied peel, icing sugar, spice, raw alcohol, some astringency, apple, pear and wood with a alcohol-driven finish. Medium body and fine carbonation. Doesn’t do much for me.... Sweet, hot, blah,,..

Burp Castle, NY draught ($9): Pours orange with a white head. Aroma is a fair amount of English hoppiness, with a malt backbone. Certainly resembles an amped up Bitter more than it does one of the thick sugary barley wine concoctions. The taste is kind of bitter, earthy, and backed up by just enough malt. Not bad, but far from great.

Pours gold into a tulip. Off-white head with little retention recedes to skim surface. Dusty nut, treacle and caramel aromas. Soft with sweet toasted nuts and toffee front to back and into the mildly bitter earth finish.