Barleywine Tasting

For my friend's birthday I smuggled a lot of American beer into the country so that he and I could do a side-by-side comparison tasting of some fantastic barleywines. As I was approaching customs, where they screen your bags, I was asked to step out of the line. He asked me if I was carrying any beef jerky. He said no and told us we could step out of the queue and be on our way. The bummer is that the crew from the TV show Border Security was there, so I could have been on television. Oh well.


We had an excellent line-up:
2002 Rogue Old Crustacean
2006 Sierra Nevada Bigfoot
2000 Heavyweight Old Salty
2003 Southampton Old Herb (454/500)
2001 Anchor Old Foghorn
2006 Victory Old Horizontal

Glenn couldn't wait to get started.


Since the years were so different we didn't really aim to rank the beers but compare them while considering their varied age. For example, I truly loved the young Bigfoot(2006) as much as the Old Foghorn (2001), but they had very different qualities. The older barleywines had more of a port-like flavour, while the younger ones still had dominant hops. Both Glenn and I chose Old Herb as our pick for the night, perhaps because it was just between the oldest and the youngest represented. I'm sure it also has to do with the fact that it is an outstanding beer. If you ever get a chance to hoard a bunch of barleywines, please set aside an evening to do a proper tasting. Your tastebuds will thank you. Thanks to Ken Munno for supplying many of the terrific beers sampled.


The weather was also conducive to a beer tasting: