English Barleywine (2023 Version) - Tasting Notes

This is my tenth version of an English Barleywine - it was brewed on Memorial Day 2023.  This is the first time I've brewed this recipe.  It appealed to me based on the Malt Bill which was partially inspired by Goose Island's King Henry.

I hopped it fairly aggressively to get a beer that would continue to be bitter through quite a bit of aging.  I think a firm hop bitterness is nice in the style to offer some balance the malt character

The beer bulk aged for 9 months and is a pretty smooth product for being close to 10% alcohol.  It finished at 1.032 (I was targeting 1.025).  It has been in the bottle for a couple weeks now and is nicely carbonated.  Time for my first tasting.

Tasting Notes:

• Aroma:
• Caramel and bready malt character along with a bit of fruit.  Has a bit of herbal hop character and some alcohol aroma
• Appearance:
• Dark Reddish Gold and fairly clear.  Pours with about 1 finger of head with an aggressive pour - this fades to nothing after less than a minute 
• Taste:
• Toasted bread and dark caramel flavors up front (maybe a bit of chocolate even).  Get a bit of hop character in the middle and then a medium bitterness into the finish along with some sweet malt.  The balance is slightly towards the malt.  There is a bit of fruit in the flavor profile but definitely takes the back seat to the malt and hops.  It hides it's strengh well
• Mouthfeel:
• Medium bodied and fairly sweet - a bit sticky on the palate.  Fairly smooth drinking with a bit of warming alcohol
• Overall:
• Bold flavors and a good deal of complexity in this one.  Very rich malty character here that is providing the bulk of the complexity.  I like the balance of the sweetness with the hops - makes for a fairly easy drinker - I could have two of these without palate fatigue (although would be unwise as strong as it is).

Raspberry Sour Blonde (2024)

This will be my Raspberry version of Sour Blonde for this round.  Raspberries are a traditional ingredient with a lambic style beer and go very nicely with it.  In my last version (2019) I used 20 lbs of fruit which made a very strong fruit forward beer.  This time (even though I have at 50 lbs of frozen fruit available) I'm going to back that down to 15 lbs to give some differences to compare as I make these over time.

Raspberries are very tart on their own so I tend to choose more mildly flavored beer blends for these fruit beers.  I will use my tasting notes from last year to guide the selection of beers (will also shoot to use up beer from every one of my batches as art of that to make room to top up all my batches with fresh beer)

I'll give the beers a few months to absorb fruit flavors and ferment down to a stable level.  I'll bottle with extra sugar for backsweetening and then pasteurize.

For the blend this year I will go with:

• Fermenter #3:
• Overview:
• Aged with Wyeast 3278 Belgian Lambic Blend
• Includes beer that has undergone a lacto fermentation
• Mix of Pilsner and Flaked wheat malt
• Very lightly hopped
• Aged in glass carboy with 1 gal of head space
• Tasting Notes:
• Aroma:  Has a lactic sour kind of small along with some earthy Brett character and a bit of fruit (something like a lemon character off this one)
• Appearance:  Light gold in color and slightly hazy
• Flavor:  Lightly sour with something reminiscent of bready sweetness in the middle which is quite nice.  Has a bit of earthy flavor in there as well.  Has a little bit of fruit character.  The finish is a balance of acidity and that bready-like flavor
• Mouthfeel:  Medium-light bodied and dry.  The acidity prickles the back of the throat a bit
• Overview:  The flavors are slightly mild but it has some interesting flavors that give it a pretty good level of complexity.  I like the acidity in this one as well as that odd bready flavor in the middle.
• Volume:
• 2 gal

• Fermenter #4:
• Overview:
• Aged with Wyeast 3278 Belgian Lambic Blend
• Includes some beer that underwent a fermentation with lacto
• Mix of Pilsner and Flaked wheat malt
• Very lightly hopped
• Aged in glass carboy with vented silicone bung
• Tasting Notes:
• Aroma:  Overripe fruit (peach maybe) and a bit of earthy brett character.  Kind of smells like cider
• Appearance:  Light gold in color and pretty cloudy
• Flavor:  Lightly sour with a fruity flavor.  There is a bit of brett character in there as well - earthy and maybe leathery along with a mineral like character.  The finish is acidity along with the fruity character - gives the slight impression of sweetness although there really isn't any.  Get a slight bit of bready malt character to this on as well
• Mouthfeel:  Light bodied and dry.  It has a prickling sort of acidity that hits in the back of the throat
• Overview:  This is a fairly mildly flavored beer.  Has a fairly nice level of complexity - get quite a few flavors out of it even though they are all subtle.  A good level of acidity to this beer.
• Volume:
• 2 gal

• Fermenter #6:
• Overview:
• Aged with  ECY 34 Dirty Dozen
• Includes beer that underwent lacto fermentation
• Pilsner and Flaked Wheat Malt bill
• No hops in this batch
• Aged in a glass carboy with vented silicone bung
• Tasting Notes:
• Aroma:  Overripe fruit and some earthy and leathery brett character pretty strong.  Also get a mineral character
• Appearance:  Gold in color and very clear
• Flavor:  Lightly sour with a strong fruit character up front.  This is followed by an earthy brett character as well as a bandaid like flavor.  The finish is a balance of acid and brett.  Has a bit of a bready character as well
• Mouthfeel:  Light bodied and dry.  Very slight prickling of acidity on the back of the throat.
• Overview:  This is a boldly flavored beer with a pretty good level of complexity.  Got a fairly subdued level of sourness to it
• Volume:
• 1 gal

Blending Notes:

•     5/5/24:
• Weighed out 15 lbs of raspberries
• Measured out 2 gal fermenter #3

• Measured 2 gal from fermenter #4
• Measured 1 gal from fermenter #6
• Setup the fermenter to age in my cool basement