Anchor Old Foghorn Barleywine

Re-Review, 2003-10-20:

Had a few pints of this at The Yardhouse (Downtown San Diego), in preparation for a nine band metal fest just down the steet, while watching my Niners finally look decent against Tampa Bay. As you could probably imagine, I was feeling "just fine!" after three pints of this most excellent Barleywine!

Looked relatively calm, with a decent-sized head of foam on top. But just as soon as I took a wiff of the aroma, I knew one thing right from the start: "Something wicked this way comes!". :)

The flavor profile and aroma both present this beer in it's very best light. Chewy, with massive amount of sweet-yet-balanced malt. But this isn't so malty as to skimp on the bitternes. In fact, this is one of the most balanced Barleywines I've had this side of Avery's Hog Heaven. And the fact that this particualr beer has been around for 15-20 years gives it the title of "The Godfather of Barleywines".

In that light, this is one beer that you should definately seek out when it "Makes you an offer you can't refuse". You'd be missing out on a nice beer if you did. Highly recommended.
//TB

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Re-Review, 2007-03-04:

Not really sure why I haven't purchased this more often -- I think this might very well be the first sixer of this I've ever purchased, to be honest. WTF is up with that? I really don't know. I've enjoyed this draught in the past, and remember the small 7oz bottles of this fondly, too. Odd. Anyway, onto the beer at hand, and let's let bygones be bygones, eh?

One of my favorite "big beer" glasses is a strange, stubby Houten Kop glass. Squatty enough to almost emulate a scotch-on-the-rocks type of glass (to help warm up the beer rather quickly), but still big enough to hold a full 12oz's of beer. And its tapered a bit inwards near the top, to help concentrate the aromas of the beer, too.

That having been said, I don't think this beer needs any special favors from funky glassware or what-have-you. Very minimal in carbonation, which is made up for by the rather assertive, almost winey aroma. Very "hot" toxic ETOH notes in the nose with this one.

But, on the other hand, the flavor profile with this one, and the mouthfeel, show no such heat. No, much more of a balance in the mouth and on the taste-buds that what the nose was finding. Very warm&homey in the mouthfeel -- comes across rather mature for it's relative young age. Malty, of course, with the hop load big but not "throat-burningingly" overwelming. Enough to provide some sort of balance, and then some, but no where near the paradigm firmly established by the likes of SN Bigfoot, Stone Old Guardian, et al.

Even with the nose-hair burning vapors coming off of this one, this is not unapproachable by any means. A bit more palatable fresh than what you'd expect, for the ABV%, O.G., etc.

Anchor's spiel on this beer has it that this is more of an English Barleywine that anything else. While I could see this being offered in a flight of English Barleywines (led by the almighty J.W.Lees, `natch), I'm not so sure that it's not more of a hybrid American/English B.W. Semantics, there, I guess....

But overall? Perhaps not a perfect 10 out-of-the-gates -- this could use some quiet time to calm down the HAZMAT aromas, for example -- but, even still, quite worthy, especially from a rather "non-beergeek-sexy" outfit such as Anchor.

//TB