The Bottom Shelf

Barleywine and Imperial Stout Festival

Greg and I met Roger at Lucky Baldwins last night to partake in their 8th annual Barleywine High Alcohol Beers & Imperial Stouts Festival. The festival started on Saturday night, so Luckys had not yet run out of the beers we wanted to try. Well, they had run out of one, the Stone Smoked Porter, which I have already raved about.

We ended up ordering a total of 13 6 oz. taster glasses, and we split these 13 into three groups: two groups of 5 tasters and one group of 3 tasters. The first five were the Stone Imperial Russian Stout, the Alesmith Old Numbskull, the Hoptown Old Yeltsin, the Alesmith Speedway Stout, and the Stone Old Guardian (2002). Greg and Roger really poo-poo’ed this bunch, but I kind of liked them. I made the analogy last night of the Stone Imperial Russian Stout being the Michael Jordan of this group of five, carrying the others along to greatness.

That’s definitely overstating it. The Stone Imperial Russian Stout was good, but it was still very much a high alcohol beer, and as such, sits a bit too heavy on the stomach for my liking. It’s a very dark beer with a thin tan head that barely covers the surface of the beer. It is surprisingly sweet, but I guess I should have known something had to be over-the-top in this “Imperial” version of the stout. It still had the little cocoa and coffee notes that make me a fan of stouts and porters in general. I rate this the best beer we had last night.

The other four from the first group fell a bit flat. Greg liked the Stone Old Guardian best, while Roger liked the Alesmith Old Numbskull. In fact, Greg and I both rated the Old Numbskull second of the lot, so overall this is a well-liked beer. Roger had the Stone Old Guardian second, so I was left all alone in my excitement over the Stone Imperial Russian Stout. The Hoptown Old Yeltsin was universally panned.

The next group of five consisted of the Rogue Old Crustacean 2000, the Lagunita Old Gnarleywine, the Anchor Old Foghorn Ale, the Avery Salvation, and the Pizzaport Barleywine. The Lagunita Old Gnarleywine showed up in all of our top three beers from this group (I had it number one, Roger had it number two, and Greg had it number three). The Old Gnarleywine was a translucent brown, looking almost like a freshly brewed dark iced tea, and it was a very well balanced beer. It was hard to find much to complain about it with this one.

Roger liked the Old Foghorn best from this group, noting that it reminded him of a Lambic with how noticeably sour it was. Greg liked the Pizzaport Barleywine best, with it’s cloudy dark yellow color, looking quite like a hefeweissen. This one was pretty damn bitter, which totally jives with Greg’s preferences in beer. Roger and Greg liked this grouping of beers the best of the night; I liked it least.

The last group had only three tasters: the Full Sail Imperial Porter, the Lost Coast Barleywine, and the Hair of the Dog Doggie Claws (2001). The Full Sail Imperial Porter was an opaque black with just a hint of the roasted barley showing through. This one was a little sweet, but it also had a bit of sour to it, which was hard to reconcile with the roasted taste. It was enjoyable, but I don’t think I would like to have a whole pint of it. The Lost Coast Barleywine was a very dark brown color and needs further review. We had gone through enough beers at this point that the taste buds were definitely dulled. The Doggie Claws was a cloudy, golden brown in color and wasn’t very exciting.

I am dorky enough that I scanned our notes from last night into a PDF file. They aren’t really “tasting” notes since we didn’t write anything down about how the beers tasted, but we did get some notes about the appearance of most of the beers. The notes were primarily used for keeping the beers straight once they arrived at the table.

And no, I don’t really expect you to be able to read my chicken scratch. The beers that are starred are ones that we will review a second time when we go back to Luckys later this week. The acronym “GIABH” is an acronym Roger devised as an attack on Greg in response to a near constant ribbing Greg was giving Roger last night. The “GIA” is “Greg is a”, and you can fill in the rest.

So not only are we beer dorks…we’re immature beer dorks at that. Pretty hot, huh?