Even after a great week of tasting including some impressive Dal Forno Romano Valpolicella and a Vilmart Cellier d'Or, I was awestruck at a Fourth of July gathering where I had the opportunity to taste a bottle of barleywine with its maker, über-brewer Brendan McGinn.
Barleywines are beer, but they often come close to wine-like strengths with McGinns 2007 barleywine nearing the 12 percent mark. Barleywines can develop remarkably wine-like flavors, with this example showing great aromatic complexity and a layered finish of sage, lilac and crusty rye bread. These beers develop their high strengths and wine notes from the use of ale yeasts (saccharomyces cerevisiae), often fermented and matured over long periods. Some American brewers have been known to use wine yeasts, capable of even greater alcoholic strength, but I preferred McGinn's, fermented with a classic American ale strain, to any other barleywine I have tasted.
Another important factor contributing to this beers complexity was its full year of bottle conditioning (aging on its own dead yeast cells). Much like the autolosis which occurs during Champagnes second fermentation in bottle (think Bollinger RD with around ten years of yeast contact), a bottle-conditioned barleywine will develop complexity and flavor during the gradual breakdown of yeasts. Barleywines also tend to display a natural sweetness balanced with the bitterness of hops. While most of the American barleywines I have sampled tend towards the sweeter side of the scale, McGinn's showed what I consider to be the more traditional, English-style of dry barleywine.
Barleywines are best served in a goblet style glass and at a serving temperature of between 50 and 60 degrees Fahrenheit. Other barleywines to look for include Anchors Old Foghorn, Thomas Hardys, and what some consider one of the first barleywines to be marketed as such, Bass No. 1. McGinn is officially on my list of brewers to watch.
The Technical data:
McGinn's Barleywine 2007
Starting Gravity 1.090
90 International Bittering Units
Pilsner and Special B Malts
Galena and Cluster hops
Fermented with a classic American ale strain at 68-70 degrees Fahrenheit for three weeks
Bottle conditioned at 60-65 degrees Fahrenheit for one year
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