Sprecher Barley Wine Ale
Barley Wine Ale is a legendary top-fermented brew with a deep amber/orange color, and intense fruit and malt nose that is laced with alcohol accented by the sweet aromas of Port. This "wine" made with barley is brewed with a French yeast culture, and possesses a complex flavor of rich malt, fruit esters, and sherry-like qualities that is delicately balanced with hops.
3.3
156 reviews
Glendale, United States
Community reviews
Bottle. Pours hazy amber with off-white head. Aroma is malty with notes of honey with a bit of spice. Flavor is same as aroma with some sweetness. Mouth feel is heavy body with low carbonation. Overall, very nice!
Bottle Thanks to Sam. Pours out a hazy amber topped with a white head. Aroma was of sweet malts, caramel, pit fruit, light hop notes, and honey. Taste was much as the aroma with a lot of sweetness some brown sugar, toffee, and some fruit.
Gold wax dipped pint bottle with metal stamp. Pours somewhat hazy, dark amber-orange with a 1 finger, creamy beige head that fades to a ring quickly. Aroma is big on caramel, sweet citrus syrup, buttery toffee, toasted nuts, a touch of pine and sweet grain. Flavor is sweet buttery toffee, more citrus, some rinds, cooked stone fruit, sweet dates, sweet sherry, some dark fruit, earth and sherry notes come out as it warms. Palate is medium bodied, syrupy throughout and lightly carbonated. Pretty decent barley wine, a bit on the lighter side of the barley wine spectrum and not super complex, but tasty and deceptively strong.
bottle, cloudy copper color with excellent aroma of french toast sticks, flavor falls off a little but still quite drinkable, with bready sour malt and marmalade and cherry
Tbh I can’t identify the vintage of this one, it looks like the one pictured but without the tag. I bought it recently from Discount Liquor, they also had the silver one. Im guessing it is 06 but i could be wrong.
Pours a deep reddish amber with a 1 finger off-white head that quickly dissipates. It appears to be decently carbonated with bubbles racing ot the surface.
The smell has a ton of butterscotch, caramel, and alcohol notes.
The taste is a bit thin for the style but the nice mouthfeel helps it out. The taste has a lot of toffee and maltiness. There is some fruitiness as well. It is sweet but not overly cloying, but not overly interesting. The alcohol never gets in the way.
Overall it is a decent attempt at the style but there are other better ones out there.
Serving type: bottle
Reviewed on: 01-23-2010 05:40:53
Thick cloudy dark amber pour with a cream-colored head that vanishes as quickly as it pours. Aroma is a bit metallic, but sweet with caramel malts molasses, and dark fruit dominant. Medium body. Dark fruit, caramel, and molasses dominate the flavor with a disappointing metallic finish.
Sampled at the SLC Holiday Tasting. Lightly hazy amber pour with little head. Aroma of sweet malt and ripe dark fruit. Flavor is super sweet fruit and malt, with almost no balancing bitterness.
16 oz bottle from TC Craft. Pours a deep caramel brown color with a couple fingers of eggshell colored head that quickly fades to virtually nothing. Aroma is pretty boozy (not in a bad way) with some dark fruit notes, specifically raisin. Flavor matches the description quite well, definitely has some qualities of port & sherry although the hops have not surprisingly faded completely away. Nice sweet finish that makes your tongue think you have indeed been drinking something from the wine family.
Bottle shared by alexsdad06. Poured clear copper color with a large frothy off-white head that mostly lasted with good lacing. Moderate to heavy dark fruit, toffee and alcohol aroma. Medium to full body with a thick smooth texture and flat carbonation. Moderate to heavy complex fruity sweet flavor with a medium to heavy sweet and alcohol burn finish that was moderate to long lasting. This is a complex beer.
2007 bottle. Pours a slightly hazy amber color with a thin whitish foam on top. The aroma is rather sweet, with an emphasis on toasted caramel malts, raisins, ripe fruits and honey. At this point, the alcohol seems to be more hidden. The flavor is more of the same: sweetness, ripe fruits, some oxidation. The finish is very soft to the point that it almost disappears. No bitterness to speak of. Medium-full body. This didn’t offer much outside of a fruity sweetness. I would like to see more complexity here.
Bottle pours clear amber with spare off-white head. Aroma and flavors of cookies, caramel, and apples....almost reminds you of an apple dumpling from Pennsylvania Dutch country. Nice balance of candied sugars and tartness of Granny Smith apples.
In short: A gross disgusting sweet mess.
How: Bottles at two different tastings. This rating for a bottle at Post- BCTC 2010 tasting
The look: Almost clear copper body topped by a beige ring of foam
In long: Nose is uber sweet with vegetal notes. Taste is slimy, honey, rotting stuff, sport gear sweat, vomit, whatever. Someone popped up a bottle at a later tasting two months later (working through my backlog here) and it was just as bad. I don’t know what’s wrong with that brewery but this is not the first beer I rate below 2 from them. That beer is like a gay bull. It is fucking bullshit.
16 oz. bottle from Discount Liquor in Milwaukee, WI (2007 bottle with gold wax). Dark amber pour with a very thin off-white head. Very fruity orange and pineapple aroma at first that quickly fades into a sweeter tangerine with notes of vanilla, brown sugar, and toffee. The flavor is obviously fruity and is more akin to wine than beer. The flavors that come to mind are cherry, red wine, and caramel. The commercial description lists "sherry-like qualities" and I would agree with that. This is one of the more interesting barley wines I have tried.
Bottle. Pours a slightly murky copper color with a slight head. The smell is actually pretty fruity and malty. Fruit aroma is that if plum and fig with slight soy. Medium/heavy mouhfeel. Zero hop presence. Surpisingly fruit. Not terrible but not great either.
Bottle back from BOTW. Pour is a syrupy and delicious looking copper color. This has all the qualities of a rich malty wineish drink without the burning alcohol you get in a lot of these takes on a barleywine. Points for that. Cherry, fruit, plum, a little molasses in the flavor. A sipping kind of drink due to the sherry like sweetness. An entirely too smooth finish. Hope profile is a little faint, grassy, herbal. A pretty nice and well balanced take here.
Wax-top pint bottle. Deep copper with a lasting ring of creamy bubbles. Nose is cherry liqueur and raisin. Flavor is the same with some light oak. Medium body is slightly sweet, thinned by the alcohol, and lightly carbonated.
Had this at BCTC after the fest, back at the campsite. Pours a clear orange brown with a thin white head. Tons of sugar and caramel, toffee and vanilla. Lots of caramel, sweat malt. Very sweet. Toffee and light bitterness on the finish. Overall way too sweet.
Bottle from BOTW. pours a nice amber with quickly diminishing head. Aroma is that of a well-aged barleywine rather than a fresh one. Flavor is much the same but with a hint of sourness. Very nice stuff. Sprecher is a bit of a sleeper brewer.
Cherry, yeast, oranges, tea, caramel and general sweetness are in the air. Appearance-wise it is murky orange, brown tinge, tiny head, no lacing. Toffee palate, I was afraid this one would be too sweet from the nose, but not bad. Has a nice mouthfeel, a little grainy after the sugary start. Apples in the flavor too along with a tiny amount of booze. Nice. Except for the wax over the bottle cap, what a pain those are.
pours red-orange with a nice white head and no lacing. sweet candied fruit aroma. dark fruit flavor with rich, sweet maltiness. Yeasty finish. A nice beer but more like a sour ale than a Barleywine
BCTC 2010, courtesy of ???. Ratebeer tent. Bourbon caramel colored pour. Rich malt aroma, caramel & booze fill out the scent. Boozy & rich maltiness dominate the flavor. More sweet than rich. Decent BW
Whoa, not at all what I was expecting from a Sprecher barley wine. Poured with a medium sized tan head that quickly subsides and no lace. Color is a clear mediium amber. Aroma is yeast hop malt and fruit. Flavor is a HUGE fruit salad! Peaches, oranges, cherries lemons, grapefruit etc. plus malt a little bitterness and hop. Body is decent and so is carbonation. Finish is like flavor. Doubt that I’d want to have more than one or two at a time.
Poured a almost clear orange/amber with a small head. Aroma: honey, sweet malts, notes of hops & alcohol. Taste: honey, spices, some brown sugar, cinnamon, notes of alcohol, maybe apple... several other flavors but just don’t know for sure what. Good finish. Smooth mouth feel, full body. Overall very good... under rated IMO.
Bottle. Poured an orange-brown with a quick thin off-white head. Aroma of fruits and vinegar. Flavor of dark fruits, mainly raisin. Medium body and sweet throughout.
2006 bottle. Pours a hazy bright red with a small head and some lace. The aroma is cherry and sherry notes with some brown sugary sweet aroma, with some apple, good if not terribly complex. The flavor has nice spicy notes with some rye and baguette bread notes. Mildly cloying with some brown sugar and some Queen Anne chocolate covered cherry cordials. There is a bit of alcohol but generally it’s pretty well concealed.
Thanks to markwise for this one.
A: Pours a murky brown hue with a small off white head. No retention or lace noted.
S: Aroma of sweet malts and darker fruits.
T: Taste of brown sugar and caramel. Very light chocolate with hints of raisin and apples.
M: Medium in body, pretty smooth, lower carbonation.
16 oz. 2007 bottle. Malty aroma with slighy yeaty notes, like a sour dough pretzel. Lighter than expected color to the liquid. Thin sticky head. Slightly fruity taste with a fruity yeaty finish. Somewhat dry. No notice of hops at all and liking hoppy barelywines i.e. Victory Old Horizontal, this is not the best in my book.
16 oz bottle, brewed 2007. Clearish golden brown with a bit of froth that livens with a swirl. Nose is butterscotch and faint grass. Body is slick and oily, slightly sticky with flabby carb. Taste is stale apple juice, white grape, a touch of cider vinegar and orange peel with an earthy finish. Weird stuff buts hides its alcohol well.
2006 pint bottle sealed with gold wax. Pours a muddy bronze colour with an off-white head that quickly disapates. Fair amount of carbonation, no lcaing. Big aroma that includes caramel malt, molasses, and a little dark fruit. Sweet flavour up front that gives way to more complex maltiness and port tastes. Never really noticed the 9.7 ABV.
Thanks to alcstradamus for this extra. Pours gold-amber with an off-white head. Nose is malt, banana, slight raisin and brandy with a bit of booziness. Flavor is similar with a fair amount of sweetness and noticeable hops. Interesting barley wine and a great sprecher beer.