Speakeasy Old Godfather
Old Godfather pours a light amber with a beige lacing. Aromas of fresh pine and citrus dominate, giving way to deep flavors of nutty maltiness and burnt caramel. A spicy hop bite of citrus peel rounds out the rich mouthfeel. Bittersweet English malts and cut-throat West Coast hops make Old Godfather a barleywine that is not to be taken lightly. As a brazenly robust brew, Old Godfather will benefit from years of cellaring, developing new refinements in character over time.
3.4
310 reviews
San Francisco, United States
Community reviews
"booze, citrusy sweetness and bitter hops. not my favorite barleywine. not bad overall...barleywine is like pizza - even a bad one’s good, but this is a below average barleywine."
Bomber (9.5% ABV). Hazy brownish amber pour with a sudsy layer of off-white head. Mostly herbal hops, pine resin and caramel malt sweetness in the aroma. Taste is resiny hops, orange rind and caramel at the start along with some candied citrus, pine and toasted malt to round things out. Medium-bodied mouthfeel with soft carbonation and more resiny bitterness and dark sugars in the finish. Pretty good balance overall between the bitter hops and sweet malt characteristics.
From a 22 oz bottle purchased at Whole Foods Pasadena. Pours a clear copper with an ecru head. Aroma of malt and grass. Flavors of caramel. Boozy finish.
Sampled on draft at Hou Thou this beer poured a caramel brown color with a large foamy tan head that lingered and left good lacing. The aroma was sour caramel, wood and had a bitter presence. The flavor was sour caramel, wood, bitterness, tobacco and an off presence. Long finish. Moderately full bodied. Very disappointing.
Little aroma. Hazy copper, huge yellow head, decent lacing. Overripe orange, marzipan accents. Some oxidation. Grassy finish. Medium body, warm. Drinks old, but I couldn’t find a bottle date. A good candidate for a re-rate, but this just fell flat. At any rate, it doesn’t seem to age well.
Poured from a bottle into a snifter, the color is a reddish brown with thin almost nonexistent head the aroma is sweet malt, dried fruit and some citrus, taste of caramel, sweetness of dried fruit, some licorice, vanilla, lingering bitterness and a long lasting warmth going down.
Bottle at a friends house. From notes. Loads of dark fermented fruits and a decent toffee backbone. Awesome beer.
Bottle. Label has ABV listed at 9.5%. Copper pour with a short tan head. Hoppy with dark fruit notes, citrus, caramel, light pine and toasted malt. Big toasted malt, light pine, caramel, toffee notes, booze, dark fruits and toasted dark bread. Body is medium and slightly chewy with a strong, dense, bubbly carbonation. Mild warmth as well. Ends with more caramel, sweet malt, toasted malt, toffee, bready notes, light pine, citrus notes and dark fruit.
P: Dark amber with a two finger thick white/tan head. S: Sharp alcohol, pine bittering hops, caramel, wood, and brown sugar. T: Caramel, piney hops and lemon zest. M: Syrupy and rather sticky. O: Not the most enjoyable but I do know that againg helps this one. I had a four year old bottle a few years back and thought it was super mellow and enjoyable but never took notes on it. Oh well, looks like one is going to the cellar.
2014 release. Beautiful Ruby appearance. Off white head. Good combination of tropical and floral hops, the malts perfectly balance the bitterness.
Amber pour with a khaki head. Nose is sweet caramel, brown sugar, and toffee. Light pine and grapefruit peel hop notes, lightly floral, and somewhat toasty. There’s a nice malt sweetness of brown sugar, caramel, and toffee. A bit of toasted bread, some grapefruit and orange peel, floral hops, and a mild pine bitterness. A hint of alcohol and some hints of dark fruit.
On draught at Lucky Labrador Barleywine and Big Beer Festival. Metallic aroma. Not as caramely and hoppy as I expected. More like an imperial IPA than a barleywine. Nice bitterness on finish though.
2007 bottle. I've been saving this for a long time. Pours dark brown with a small off white. Nose is cotton candy, caramel, hay, pastry and booze. The taste is still bitter. Wow. Good base sweetness but the flavor has rounded out so well. The mouthfeel is smooth and creamy, body is heavy and finish is long.
Notes from my backlog: Opaque pour with a khaki ring of head. Big boozy aroma. Licorice, anise, alcohol- stings the nostrils. Big alcoholic palate. Lots of burn and ethanol in the flavor. Licorice, salty notes. Abrasive with no subtlety.
Bottle 33 cl, trade. Pours deep dark redish amber with a small beige head leaving lace. Aroma is very malty, bready, sweet raisins and fidges, fruits, caramel and a bit spicy. Flavor is light malty and sweet eith some raisins to begin with, more malty body bitterness and some phenolic fruits in the middle finishing with pungent bitter and dry aftertaste together with warming alcohol.
Pours clear light ruby with little head. Smell is light/mild, very dark fruit, lighter brown sugar smells. Spicy taste, sweet, fruity, juicy, medium bodied, bit of alcohol heat. Good.
Pours a red orange in tint, pretty light looking with a slight layer of see through head. Smells malt driven as is typical of barley-wines, however I could still sense hops, which is interesting. It is extremely malty, I could almost taste cherry. Decent barleywine overall.
3 oz. sample on tap at Brouwer’s Café for Hard Liver, pours dark mahogany. Aroma of light toasted malts and caramel – pretty one-dimensional. Flavour is very syrupy, overly sweet caramel and candy. Palate is way too syrupy and cloying. A little offensive, really.
Medium amber brown, white head. Brown sugar, slightly doughy nose with toffee, herbal, resinous hops also notable. Tastes a bit like cookie dough, maple, more brown sugar, dried fruit, lots of floral and resinous hops finishing it out with a lingering bitter. Bold and tasty with enough balance to make the sweetness tolerable. Definitely a nice American style barleywine.
To start this barley wine off, it poured a deep hazy chestnut brown with golden amber highlights. It quickly built a tight single-finger thick fawn colored head of large bubbles that fell within 30 seconds to a thin island and collar around the glass with no lace to speak of. Initially there were some minuscule streams of tiny bubbles peppering the liquid, but in no time at all, it ended up appearing fairly flat with no visible carbonation.
The nose was predominantly a bourbon-like alcohol that "burns the nostrils." I would be hard-pressed to say that Speakeasy even remotely tried to cover up the glaringly obvious 10.2%ABV in Old Godfather, and I might go so far as to say that all of the grains and malts in it only further exacerbate the ethanol scent. It held barley and oats up front with pale and crystal malts - pale coming through more aggressively than the crystal, but both are definitely present. There were rich dominant caramel malts drenched in super sweet brown sugar molasses and cooked with real maple syrup. No Aunt Jemima here. There was also an odd warm, burnt toffee with chocolate notes that didn’t quite seem to fit in, as well as an even odder hint of overripe cherries lingering and fermenting way underneath. I found it hard to tell if there were any hops at all, though through a little research, others claim to have found both pine and citrus quite easily - which I can totally get on board with when I think about it, but otherwise I just can’t seem to get past the glaring caramel and alcohol.
Dipping into it, my tongue was washed over with the bourbony alcohol right off the bat. I was actually a little surprised to find it thinner in the mouthfeel with a lighter-medium body, which I expected to be a little thicker due to the high ABV. Even the carbonation was lacking - though it still managed to bite my tongue with a combination of alcohol, something bright and citrusy that I couldn’t pick out in the nose, and some bold bitter hops that also hid from the aroma. After the initial bitter overload, the in-your-face pale and crystal malts came out swathed in a rich caramel sauce accented with brown sugar and molasses, which made it very candy-sweet and just shy of syrupy. The flavors didn’t last much longer after I swallowed, and it finished very dry with tongue-numbing effects.
Quite strong in the floral hoppiness of aroma and flavor. Sweet, with a flavor of dried fruit, hops, sweet malts, and nuts. Strong, worthy of a long savory drink.
27th March 2009
Hazy amber beer. Low carbonation. Soft to medium palate. Sweet malt that quickly gives way to sweet fruit overlaid by briney hops and an aniseed alcohol warming finish.
Courtesy of Pailhead. Clear amber with no head. Aroma is very muted with some crystal/caramel character and not much else. Flavor is overly sweet, almost like unfermented candi sugar. Slight alcohol in finish, almost no hop character to speak of. Slight oxidation. Watery thin.
Tap @ BPP. Hazy red coppery brown pour with a short off-white head leaving light lacing. Dates and figs nose. Start and middle are more of the same with a heavy whiskey and rum booziness entering late and lasting through the finish. Medium body and carbonation. No hop aromas detectable, very sweet. One of the least pleasing barleywines I’ve had.
2 12oz bottles shared at Gerry’s Xmas Big Beer Vertical. Thanks Gerry! Pours a deep brown, slightly copper colour with thin head that faded to a ring quickly. Aroma, sweet. citrus, a lot of orange some lemon lime. Bittersweet flavour of caramel,toffee and brown sugar. More grapefruit notes later on. Alcohol is pretty evident and not as refined as I would like, perhaps aging will melow this. Thick body, oily creamy mouthfeel, bitter dry finish. Very nice.
In short: A boozy basic barley wine with strange cardboard notes. Meh.
How: Bottle 12oz. Consumed when about 1 year of age
The look: Murky amber with lots of medium size particles. Small beige head leaving good lacings
In long: Nose of marmalade and wooden resinous hops. Taste is a bit here and there. First I thought the beer had a strange astringency that was almost like cardboard-mouth-drying. There was no oxidation sign on the nose and the beer was purchased one year ago from a beer store with a good turn around (Julio’s). So I really don’t know what to make of this slight strange cardboard astringency. Outside of than that I got some caramel, some dried fruits, plywood, some hops resin, lots of booze. Very warm boozy finish. Maybe I got a bad bottle. Some might say "what does this always happen to me?" but do we really need a rhetorical question in a beer rating?
From the Brickskeller in DC. Not quiet sure what I had as it was noted as an Imperial Common. I thought it was a barleywine. Amber with nice off-white head that left nice lacing. Big caramel malt nose. Alcohol present, thin malty, hoppy and a bit dry.
I cant get much at all off the aroma, pretty bland nose. Taste is still hot (2007 bottle) and very one note, caramel. Not very good.
Bottle courtesy of fishingnet. Poured a clear copper color with a thin beige head. Nose has huge notes of caramel and pine, also some spice, citrus, and plum. Thin to medium body with a slightly watery mouth feel and soft carbonation. Flavor is sweet and malty with huge piny hop notes. Primary notes of toffee, pine, and citrus, secondary notes of plum, and faint anise. Finishes with a good amount of warming alcohol.
12 oz bottle served in a tulip. Pour was amber with two fingers of beige head. Nose is caramel, malt, hops, and booze. Taste is exactly the same as the nose. This brew is a bit too hot for my tastes, and the alcohol really makes it self known in the finish. The caramel that is prevalent throughout is very well done with this beer.