Ballast Point Barmy Apricot Ale
Made with only six ingredients. Malted 2-row barley, palisade hops, orange blossom honey, White Labs California Ale Yeast, apricots and San Diego carbon filtered tap water. Low bitterness is balanced by tart apricots with a sweet but not cloying finish. Barmy Ale can be aged up to eight years with a strong honey wine character emerging if cellared. Be careful not to be the barmiest of them all.
3.4
247 reviews
San Diego, United States
Community reviews
Served @ The flying dog, Stockholm. A bit too peachy, apricot sweet for my liking.
Bottle from a store in San Carlos. Lovely light fruity beer, smelling of honey, apricots, peaches. Dark golden yellow with thin white head. Boozy, with flavours of apricots, peaches, dark honey. Lingering floral flavours, and a slight metallic note.
Pours orange amber yellow-tinged white head. Scent is full of tart fruit with only minor honey. Taste has a little honey up front finished by with the tart apricot. The tart flavor covers the booziness. You would never guess the alcohol content was 12%. Body is medium. Good fruit beer if you wanna get tipsy.
12%ABV. Barleywine.
Poured out gold. 8SRM.
Nose is corn syrup and creamed corn sweetness.
Mouthfeel is syrupy with pronounced carbonation. Alcoholic palate. Carbonation is pronounced. Over-ripe citrus with sweet, estery, over a broad sour fruity palate, then a woody, citrus seed bitter.
Finish is bitter, light resin and prolonged.
Overall, a very enjoyable barleywine that’s been disguised with carbonation and color to look like a golden.
Enjoyable and a very pleasant tasting ride.
Golden and strong. Looks perfect, tastes wonderful, and is relatively mild on the belgian flavours but bold on flavour. Ballast point SD
Bottle at home. Pours clear amber, nose is floral, honey, sugary, taste is sweet honey, toffee, floral, light fruit.
330ml bottle. Pours golden yellow colour. Moderate white head. Seeetness, honey, caramel, slight hints of candy sugar in the aroma. Sweetness, candy sugar, flowery notes, caramel and honey in the taste. Very slight notes of apricots. Candy sugar in the aftertaste. Rather medium bodied, medium carbonated interesting brew. Alcochol well covered. Not a fan of sweet belgium style strong ales, but tastes good.
11/20/16. Bottle. I don’t think I realized this was 12% at the time. This could get a gurl krunk, yikes. Golden orange pour with a small khaki head. Light apricot aroma, honey, light pit fruits. Lightly sweet flavor, apricot, light pit fruits, pale malts. Not bad.
Aroma is malty and honey sweet. Fruity peach/apricot notes lingering in a heavy, somewhat boozy environment. Taste is big and sweet as well, thick and almost syrupy texture with the sticky sweetness hitting you hard, before the alchol kicks in. It is rather boozy actually, made me think a little about apricot brandy. The alcohol wears off a little bit after some time in the glass, but it’s there all the time, hanging over you like some bad conscience. Very special brew, more like a too sweet barley wine than a golden ale. Probably works best as a sipper in winter time?
I am thoroughly impressed with this one for being how high octane it is as a golden ale. 12%! This would taste great barrel aged. The only thing that throws me off a bit is there is a slight medicinal character to it as you have high alcohol mixed with apricot. Another unique and solid effort from BP.
Draft. Intense apricot aromas. Oranges, fresh hay. Strong alcohol on the palate, then strangely sweet-but-dry. Honey. As promised, not cloying. Reminds me of a dessert wine.
Bottle pour. Appearance is hazy light brown/dark yellow with nice sparkle, ephemeral less-than-finger-width white head with trace lacing. Aroma is champagne-like yeast, tart, apricot, honey/candied sugar over malts. Taste is candied sugar/honey, apricots over malt base; hints of barley wine in here; alcohol hidden well. Palate is light-to-medium bodied with thin texture, lively carbonation and sweet honey finish. Overall, a little on the sweet side--which is hard to do with me--but some complexity here.
On a flight at the Ballast Point place in Temecula, California on 9th Feb 2017. Golden orange pour, white head. As the name suggests, this tastes and smells of apricots, so fairly tart and musty, yet with a pleasant sweetness: is that from the added honey or the apricots? I don’t know. Anyway, I enjoyed this, thought the alcohol was well hidden too.
On tap at grind house. Sweet honey flavor. Big body. A little apricot flavor. Honey apricot aroma. A little goes a long way here but it’s good.
On tap at Ballast Point - Scripps Ranch, pours a hazy orange amber with a small white head. Aroma brings out lots of Belgian yeast, candied sugar and phenols. Flavour is boozy, with lots of candied sugar, Belgian yeast and alcohol. Inauthentic, but it works well for what it is. A boozy, sugary mess that works decently.
Bottle. Tastes like apricot, honey, cereal malt, toast, and grassy hops. Light/medium body and carbonation. Smells like pale malts, apricot, citrus hops, and honey.
Bottle. Pours clear orange. Aroma and flavor are apricot, pale malt, faint honey, and soft floral and citrus hops. Medium body.
Perfectly clear apricot and orange coloured body with a thinnish, single centimetre tall tan head. Aroma of honey, yeast, alcohol, oranges, citrus, metal and a bit of medicinal scents. Medium to Full-bodied; Strong rich honey flavours show through first with a lot of malt, some apricots, pears, citrus and finishing with a ton of alcohol warmth. Aftertaste shows a nice apricot and fruity flavour with a lot of residual fruit sweetness, a bit of toffee and pitted fruits, raisins and some smoother hop and malt elements near the end. Overall, a nice and robust offering with a lot of malt, honey, yeast and some floral flavours as well, but the apricot and alcohol are by far the strongest here. Nice to sample, and even though I believe this one either belongs in the American Strong or Tripel category, this still is a decent enough beer to look for, and have around if you can get it on the cheap, given it’s high potency. I sampled this twelve ounce bottle purchased from Liqour Outlet in Boonton, New Jersey on 26-November-2016 for US$2,79 sampled at home in Washington on 07-February-2017.
A little heavy on the honey but the apricot is quite nice. Really hides its alcohol.
Gold color. Aroma has some apricot and malt. Lots of sweet malt in the flavor, there is a lot of sugsr here. Minimal apricot flavor along with alcohol. Carbonation is low.
On tap at the brewery. Pours a clear orange with small white head that lasts. The aroma is bubblegum and honey. Medium body, strong honey, wheat, light finish, good.
From the 12 fl. oz. bottle stamped 16250 on the bottom. The pour is a kind of orange-amber color with little to no head. Good clarity. The aroma does have a note of honey and low booze for 12%. Some bread and light apricot fruit. Not forward. The body is smooth and around medium. The booze is well buried in the flavor it I get some grainy booziness. A little honey sweetness.
Bottle to shaker - pours a dark peach color, thin wispy ivory head. Aroma is spiced peach, pear, earthy malt. Medium bodied, qualities of a fall beer, gourd, earth, honey, late Summer harvest. Long lingering finish with fall spice, a bit syrupy at times and a quick burn going down. Well masked abv. decent but not good enough to get sloppy on so quickly with the abv.
12 oz bottle poured into a lager glass.
Appearance: Apricot (light copper) colored body with a short but creamy off-white head that dissipates slowly. Lightly hazed with a good amount of visible carbonation.
Nose: Honey, apple, winter spices, pear and baked bread.
Flavor: I hadn’t read the label, so I was surprised by the obviously high ABV (9%?), then surprised again to find it listed at 12% ABV. This could put a damper on my work plans. Fruity with apricot, apple and pear. Apricot, honey and alcohol are more obvious here than in the nose. Hints of caramel, cinnamon, and winter spices. Hits the tongue sweet but mildly bitter finish.
Mouthfeel: Full bodied and warming, with medium carbonation.
Overall: A very strong and fruity but refined and pleasant ale.
Fat @Syltan, Malmö. Gyllengul öl med ett gulvitt skum. Doft av karamell, aprikos, persika och kex. I smaken tar alkoholen över mer och balansen försvinner.
12 oz bottle. No packaging date. Clear amber pour with a white head. Initial hit on the aroma is DMS. I’m having difficulty getting anything else from it. It’s a DMS bomb. No apricot character whatsoever. And it advertises it can be aged up to 8 years? No. Bad. A very unpleasant experience. Glad I didn’t get a 6 pack.
12 oz bottle. Hazy yellow. Aroma is honey, with some dried apricot. Taste is bitter honey sweetness, belgian triple yeast. Doesnt taste like 12% initially, but you feel the booze pretty quickly.
12 oz bottle. Aroma is Smarties, honey. Pours slightly hazy orange with a quickly collapsing off-white head. Taste starts out sweet and boozy before a heavy bitterness sets in. Alcohol is astringent. Flavors of apricot, honey. Damn, what a hot mess. Was this beer created after they sold out? WTF, Ballast Point?
Sample from Poisoneddwarf off his bottle, thanks- Pours hazy orange with minimal head and no lace. Aroma is fermented apricots, syrupy. The taste is apricots, syrup, boozy alcohol. This would have been boring but decent with half the alcohol, what was BP thinking with this one.
Gainesville, Fl - Total wine & More - 12 oz bottle. Sparkling, dark golden pour, quickly diminishing bubbly off-white head. Aroma has some booziness to it, some apricot type liqueur accents, some honey sweetness. flavor is bold, sweet apricot preserves, a touch of brandy, some honey sweetness, a tad boozy. Mouthfeel is thick and nicely textured. Best in small doses.