Nils Oscar Barley Wine

Aroma: 9 | Appearance: 9 | Mouthfeel: 8 | Flavor: 9 | Overall: 9

This beer pours a beautiful rust colour with brownish highlights at the edges. Aromas of caramel, butterscotch, citrus, and plums permate the air. A smooth drinking beer with well hidden alcohol and a nice malty feel. Nice and sweet without being sickly sweet.

Aroma: 8 | Appearance: 8 | Mouthfeel: 9 | Flavor: 8 | Overall: 8

Excellent barleywine with hints of oak. This beer seems oddly underrated to me. It pours a rich amber with gold highlights and not too much head but good lacing. The aroma is mostly caramel malt with hints of brandy and mineral hops. The malt is rich and buttery and comes through even better on the tongue. This beer has three well-defined stages of flavor. The front is sweet with brandy, plums and bananas. The middle has an excellent malt flavor of buttered bread. The finish has a slight bit of mineral hops and a nicely dry oak flavor. The feel is somewhat sticky, but it’s not over the top for a barleywine and retains a very pleasant flavor throughout the mouth. This barleywine lives up to the "wine" portion of the style. It’s sweet, oaky and rich. I imagine it would only get better over time. It’s a shame it cost me eight bucks or I’d buy a bunch to age. Those mineral hops are definitely going to drop out in favor of a stronger brandy flavor.

Aroma: 7 | Appearance: 10 | Mouthfeel: 8 | Flavor: 7 | Overall: 8

nice aroma, extremely different .. . light sherry, tart molasses, mellow sour ale .. . very nice lacing .. .giggity giggity goo! .. . enjoyable aftertaste .. . mellow-ist barleywine i've ever had .. . i could drink this alot!

Aroma: 6 | Appearance: 7 | Mouthfeel: 6 | Flavor: 7 | Overall: 6

A reasonably vigorous pour produces a scant, half-finger thick, pale, off-white colored head. The beer is a brilliantly clear, amber color that shows bright, copper highlights when held up to the light. The aroma is quite malt focused and is somewhat sweet and chewy seeming. Aromas of caramelized apples, light toffee and caramelized bread crust character make up the most dominant malt notes. There are some light herbal hop notes here as well as a touch of warm alcohol aromatics, somehow though the aroma seems quite a bit more restrained than one would expect from a beer of this strength. As my nose gets used to it this becomes more and more vegetal in character and also has a green apple note to it, while never overwhelming it is a bit disappointing.

Not overly sweet, but what malt sweetness is here is fairly rich and complex, though not overly flavorful. Again, the flavor seems light for a beer of this strength; somehow a malt richness that I would expect seems to be lacking here. There is some hop character here, though it is light, but it seems to add a bit of astringency and play up some light phenolic notes. Fruity notes of green apples, and regular apple notes, some green-grape notes. A touch of toffee up front, yields to some soft toasty, bread-like, and cracker leaning malt character towards the finish. Somewhat light for a beer of this strength, though it of course has a heft to it. The flavor is more fruity than anything, though there is some astringent hop character here.

A very interesting beer, not at all what I was expecting, and really it doesn't seem to really work for me.

Purchased: Plaza Liquors, Tucson AZ

Aroma: 4 | Appearance: 5 | Mouthfeel: 6 | Flavor: 5 | Overall: 5

(Green's Trip: 08') Picked up this brew from Sweden just in an effort to try more brews coming from some of the Nordic countries to the US in recent months. Aroma on this one is a bit shallow with some grainy overtones coming through as well as some slight malty sweetness with maybe some caramelization. Appearance is much, much, much lighter than your average barleywine and is a light reddish orange in color when held to the light with a medium-sized head on top that dissipates to a light lacing that coats the glass and is off-white in color. Mouthfeel is light-bodied with some decent complexity of malt as well as slight hoppy balance with a palate that is a bit thin and almost oily. Flavor is shallow with not much rich, chewy malty sweetness and has an aftertaste that is grainy with less than average overtones of ripened fruit with a finish that is clean, thin, and dry and a bit disappointing. Overall, I am not sure this brew should be labeled a barleywine; something just seems a bit odd and off, but the alcohol is not very noticeable and I would not recommend this brew...lackluster ale here. Maybe I will buy another to age it and then try a little time down the road.

Aroma: 7 | Appearance: 6 | Mouthfeel: 6 | Flavor: 7 | Overall: 7

A bit hazy golden colour with mediumsized white foamy head. Malt, hops and alcohol in aroma, which also has some honeyish notes. Malt, honey and alcohol in flavour. A bit sticky mouthfeel afterwards. Kind of sweetish aftertaste with hints of bread.

Aroma: 8 | Appearance: 9 | Mouthfeel: 9 | Flavor: 8 | Overall: 8

RBESG 2006, bottle. Dark amber coloured. Lovely sweet and vinous aroma, notes of sherry and oak. Sweet, oaky and vinous flavour. A very fine beer from Nils Oscar.

Aroma: 8 | Appearance: 8 | Mouthfeel: 7 | Flavor: 7 | Overall: 8

I've never actually tried this beer (just kidding)....An amber colored beer with litte head. The aroma was filled with alcohol, dark fruits, and sugar. The flavor was syrupy with some raisins, caramel, cherries, oranges, and brown sugar. The finish was warming and sweet. Good beer!

Aroma: 8 | Appearance: 7 | Mouthfeel: 7 | Flavor: 8 | Overall: 8

Amber coloured with no head. Sweet and fruity aroma (apricot, cherries), vanilla and alcohol. Tastes sweet and syrupy with some malts, small fruity acidic notes and of course alcohol. Warming sweet finish with some dry notes. A bit to sweet overall, could improve with age. Still a good and well-crafted beer.