American Barleywine

Tier A · BJCP 22C · Ale, fermented warm, made from an enormous quantity of malt and balanced with a very large hop charge. A sipping beer, usually released once a year in winter.

ABV

8-12%

IBU

50-100

SRM

9-18

Serve

50-55F

Glass

Snifter

Pour

6-8 oz

Identify

Amber through copper to light brown, with ruby lights when you hold it up. The colour looks dense, as though you are looking through thicker glass than you are. A modest tan head that sinks quickly, and visible legs running down the inside when you tilt it. Thick and coating, closer to syrup than to beer. Caramel and dried fruit arrive first, then a wall of hop bitterness, then a warmth that spreads through your chest several seconds after you swallow. The finish goes on for a long time and your gums feel slightly gripped.

Place

The United States. The name is English and dates from the Bass brewery in the late nineteenth century. The American version begins with Anchor Old Foghorn in the mid 1970s, and Sierra Nevada Bigfoot in 1983 set the hop forward pattern everybody else followed.

Cause

Two words first. Wort is the sweet liquid a brewer gets after soaking crushed grain in hot water, before the yeast goes in. Attenuation is how far the yeast gets through the sugar in that liquid before it stops. Both matter here more than in any other style. An ordinary pale ale starts at a gravity of about 1.050.

Confused with

English Barleywine, which is maltier and much less bitter. Double IPA, which is nearly as strong and far thinner. American Strong Ale, which is the same idea turned down. Imperial Stout, which is black and tastes of roast.

Numbers

A barleywine is a beer made as strong as brewers could make it. The name is a comparison, not an ingredient list. There are no grapes and no wine in it, and the word is there to warn you that this is closer to wine in strength than to beer. The American version adds one thing to the old English idea: hops, in quantity.

Will you like it and Try

Sticky toffee pudding, treacle tart, salted caramel, or anything built on cooked sugar. Marmalade, especially a bitter Seville one. That combination of sweet and bitter is the exact balance this beer is aiming at. Sipping drinks. If you like a whisky or a brandy that you nurse for half an hour, you already have the habit this beer needs.

Order and Pair

Ask which year it is. Many barleywines are vintage dated and bars often have two. A fresh Bigfoot and a three year old Bigfoot are genuinely different drinks. Ask for a small pour. Six to eight ounces is standard and nobody will think it odd. Many bars will not serve this style in a full pint at all.

Judge, Myth and Remember

The alcohol is warm rather than sharp. Heat in the chest is right. A smell of nail polish remover is not. Malt and hops hold each other up. Neither should win outright, and a beer that tastes only of sugar or only of bitterness has failed at the one thing this style is for. The body is full and coating.