The Long Life of Barleywine; 15 Oregon examples to try now

The often misunderstood Barleywine seems here to stay after rising and falling, only to sink, swim, and intrigue modern day brewers again. Unlike the growing in popularity beer-wine hybrids or oneobeers, the barley wine has no grapes or wine like production similarities.

“Barley wines get their name because they have alcohol levels more closely associated with wine than traditional beer,” writes Dogfish Head Craft Brewery founder Sam Calagione in his book “Extreme Brewing.” Calagione is just one of hundreds (thousands?) of brewers to become fascinated with the style and reinvigorate it in the 2000’s fueling a resurgence that continues today with over a dozen different barleywines currently available from Oregon brewers alone.

Barleywines have been around for more than a century; Bass beer is credited with originating the term in 1870 with Bass No. 1 Barleywine. But all the way back in 1763 a book called The London and Country Brewer references an unnamed type of beer brewed “as to be of a Vinous Nature…to answer the like purpose of wine.”

Anchor Brewing introduced the style to the US with Anchor Old Foghorn Barleywine in 1976. But the modern day torchbearers are the long-running Sierra Nevada Bigfoot Barleywine released each year since 1983, and Thomas Hardy’s Ale which dates back to 1968. Both of the previously mentioned beers represent prototypical examples of their respective genres of barleywine, the former the American Barleywine and the latter the English-style Barleywine. Both are strong, rich, and sweet, but taste very different due to the types of malts, yeast, and especially Americans penchant to hop the shit out of them.

Barleywines increased in popularity in the new millenium along with the American craft beer revolution, and peaked with the extreme beer movement for massive alcohol, hops, and YOLO type arms races to cram the highest ABV and IBU’s into a single beer. This was also around the time that craft beer drinkers were discovering barrel-aging, and beer aging, many starting beer cellars for the first time. Barleywine, like it’s cousin the olde ale, strong ale, and stock ale, are often made to age gracefully. The traditional British-style Barleywines are all about the malt depth and dark, leathery fruit notes coming from London ale yeasts and intense carmelizations from extended boils of the wort prior to fermentation. American examples are also malty, but sometimes that only serves as a base to push tongue scrapingly bitter beers that are almost undrinkable fresh and in their prime in 2-3 years time.

Though barleywines popularity crested and began to diminish when nearly every brewery developed a strong beer and oak-aged program that made the style less unique, a “Barleywine is Life” movement has persisted. Fueled by the social media hashtag #BiL (aka Barleywine is Life) often attributed to beer personality “Dont Drink Beers”, the saying has taken on a life of it’s own, used in both devotion to the burly genre of beers and alternatively to poke fun at it and beer nerds eccentric obsessions. In the last 5 or so years the production of barleywines seemed to noticeably fall off, but the craft brew industry has proven adept at dusting off staid styles and reintroducing them if only for a moment, and 2022 looks to be one of those times in Oregon. Winter is unofficial barleywine season, when brewers like to release their most challenging winter warmers for stocking stuffers and cellar goodies.

We counted atleast 15 barleywines from Oregon currently available in cans and bottles that take on unique inspirations like black and blonde barleywines, British and American interpretations, spiced, flavored, and winterized versions, fresh and young and single spirit barrel-aged options in the flavors of the rainbow.

Montavilla Brew Works Old Montavillain

MBW goes old school with this highly European ingredient laden Barleywine that fills the glass with notes of dark fruit, red wine grapes, vanilla, oak, fusel alcohols and a licorice-like spiciness. The brewers begin with Scottish Golden Promise pale malt and finish with the spicier citrus rind flavors of German bred Amarillo hops. After fermentation Old Montavillain was transferred into local Freeland Spirits whiskey barrels to pick up bright boozy notes and lightly charred oak. The barrels were from a "Private Reserve" selection and started as red wine barrels before being filled with American whiskey so it also helps to distinguish the fruit notes naturally present in a beer of this nature. At just 8% ABV it’s one of the lighter barleywines, but still more than strong enough to quench your desire for a deep sipper. Available on draft and in extremely limited 16oz cans from the brewery in southeast Portland.

Alesong Brewing & Blending Maestro

Some consider barleywines the “dean” of beer styles, and for Alesong their beer “Maestro” lives up to that name as it’s been in the original lineup and released annually since 2017. The Eugene, Oregon based breweries beloved English-style barleywine is aged in freshly emptied Heaven Hill bourbon barrels, this oak-forward leader crescendos from first sip to last.  Sultry aromas of toffee, vanilla, and spice lead the band and a balanced sweet, caramel-like malt flavor rounds out this full-bodied ale that ends in an increasingly strong 13.9% ABV.

Baerlic Brewing Perpetual Astonishment ( Blonde Barley Wine)

The blonde barleywine is a variation on the classic that seems to have emerged in the last 5-10 years as far as we can tell. It’s pretty essential for a barleywine to have a layered malt base, but there is no reason it has to be dark and muddy. The blonde barleywine has a lighter golden color and often shows off brighter stone fruit flavors and vanilla, with less roast and acridity and a slightly lighter mouthfeel. Baerlic Brewing’s is brewed in the British-style tradition only with more typical lighter ale barley from a blend of English Golden Promise and Maris Otter malts. The result is deep notes of vanilla, toasted oak and toffee. Perpetual Astonishment is hopped more like a modern American IPA with fruity and dank varieties El Dorado, Citra and Mosaic. Then the final product is rounded out with 12 months of aging in Elijah Craig Bourbon casks. Available now at Baerlic Brewing on their webstore and in the right taprooms. ABV 10.5%

Ex Novo Brewing Nevermore ‘22 (Black Barleywine)

The opposite of a blonde barleywine is a black barleywine like the one Ex Novo Brewing came up with that has continued to win accolades. Think of it as the Black IPA of barleywines, a unique take made with cocoa nibs and house smoked figs. Nevermore is bitter, ashy and smokey, with bittersweet dark chocolate and vanilla notes, and underlying flavors of cherry, smoke, cascara and berries and spicy whiskey and oak. 12.1% | IBU: 56

McMenamins / Kat Nyberg

McMenamins Longest Night of the Year

McMenamins breweries has been releasing three different versions of their Longest Night of the Year barleywine since atleast 2019. Based on an English-style barleywine, Longest Night is aged in two different spirit barrels and one wine barrel, each saved from their own distillery and winemaking facility coming out at 10.7% ABV.

Longest Night of the Year Port: This version of the English Barleywine was aged in McMenamins Fireside Port barrels. Its toffee and caramel flavors are accentuated by notes of dark berries, cooked plums and raisins thanks to its extended time in the barrel.

Longest Night of the Year Whiskey: After aging in Hogshead Whiskey barrels, this beer is a true example of a classic, barrel-aged English Barleywine. Already a formidable ale in its own right, it has matured into a flavorful and complex behemoth. It offers flavors of toffee, caramel, and a warming alcohol caracter that's been rounded and accentuated by notes of raisin, vanilla, and oak from its aging.

Longest Night of the Year Rum: This version was aged in Three Rocks Rum barrels. Its toffee and caramel flavors are accentuated by notes of maple, brown sugar, and oak, thanks to its extended time in the barrel.

Gigantic Brewing MASSIVE!

Inspired by beers like Gales Prize Olde Ale, Gigantic Brewing makes their barleywine by boiling the wort for over 8 hours (as opposed to the usual 60-90 minutes) to create the rich malt flavor usually achieved with a complex malt bill in other barleywines. The base malt is always a single-malt that the brewery whishes to highlight, in both 2021 and now 2022 MASSIVE! features Skagit Valley Pilot Malt out of Washington. The final beer has a deep ruby character, and is available in 6 different spirits barrel-aged versions this year: Bourbon, Rum, Rye, Highland Scotch, Islay Scotch and Irish Whiskey barrels.

Away Days Brewing Bucket Hat Bobby

Bucket Hat Bobby barleywine was originally brewed in the closely related English-style Olde Ale and had a completely different recipe. It’s now a straight forward take on the British tradition with layers of different specialty crystal malts for those rich components of toffee, caramel, raisin, dates, brown sugar, that you want. English East Kent Golding hops are used, and the Away Days house European yeast strain West Yorkshire is employed to really dry the beer out but still leave it full and malty with a lower 9% ABV in comparison to some of the bigger examples of the style. Bucket Hat Bobby barleywine is available now at the brewery and in bottleshops in 16oz cans.

Pelican Brewing Mother of All Storms

A bone-a-fide classic, Pelican Brewing’s Mother of All Storms has racked up more than 12 medals - 5 of them gold - in national and international competitions. Based on the earlier developed Stormwatcher’s Winterfest an English-style Barleywine, Pelican releases it these days after a year of aging in Kentucky bourbon barrels and coincides with the stormy season in their hometown of Pacific City, Oregon. Nearly at its peak, Mother of all Storms delivers deep flavors of toasted malt, bourbon and oak in 14% ABV. The finish rewards with whispers of vanilla, toffee and caramel. Pelican suggests you hunker down—this beer is best enjoyed with winds in excess of 60 mph.

Breakside Brewery LIFE Barleywine

Every batch of LIFE Barleywine clocks in at 9.5% ABV and will feature specialty grains from a different maltster. Breakside’s brewmaster, Ben Edmunds, selected some of the most renowned British maltsters, as well as up and coming producers from the Northwest. Each recipe is built around the nuances of the malt with color, flavor, and malt profile varying batch to batch, matching the change of seasons. The first LIFE released in November had more Orange-copper colors of autumn, the second release that hit in December was darker with notes of nuts and raisins. The next release in the spring will get lighter, progressively so with following releases going into the summer. The packaging for each batch of LIFE will also change colors with each release so that drinkers can easily differentiate releases. Labels feature a QR code that will send drinkers to a webpage detailing the differences between every variant’s malts and flavor profiles.

Ecliptic Brewing Orange Giant

Named after the giant orange stars in the sky, this barleywine ale is brewed in the American-style with three malts to create a hearty and robust malt profile. Copious amounts of Columbus, Chinook and Simcoe hops combine for a nice resin hop flavor. Orange Giant is perfect for aging in your cellar.

There is a regular relatively fresh version of Orange Giant and a truly massive Barrel-Aged Orange Giant Barleywine that spent 12 months aging in Freeland Spirits bourbon barrels, developing notes of orange, honey, coconut and oak. IBU: 80, ABV: 12.5% ABV

Fort George Etymology

Etymology was one of the last long-term projects from Fort George barrel master Dave Coyne before he departed to open oak obsessed new brewery Obelisk Beer Co.

Etymology is a blend of two very different but equally delicious variations of barleywine. One a rich, toasty, black barleywine (Etym) and the other a classic, 12-month barrel aged American style (Ology). After months of study and reflection, they blended the two with a third, younger American barleywine to create this bold and balanced beer with a smokey dark chestnut brown color, aroma of dark toffee, molasses, red wine, vanilla and rum with a smooth caramel flavor and bright notes of floral fruit.

Block 15 Brewing Figgy Pudding

A longtime Block 15 yearly holiday offering was first launched as a spiced winter olde ale and was more recently reimagined as an English-style Barleywine. Brewed with specialty malts, and blackstrap molasses, steeped with Ceylon cinnamon and nutmeg and matured in freshly emptied brandy barrels make it a unique interpretation with a festive quality. The perfect beer to share with friends and family around a cozy fireplace or celebration at 11% ABV.

Ruse Brewing Over the River, Under the Moon

Portland’s Ruse Brewing collaborated with famed Seattle bottleshop Bottleworks on a rare barrel-aged barleywine for the winter season. This luscious treat has a million layers of caramel notes complemented by 18 months of rest in maple syrup casks that previously held highly sought after Pappy Van Winkle Bourbon. A gentle American hop bitterness guides you from sip to sip as this beer warms to show off it’s 14.7% ABV as its complexities intensify.

pFriem Family Brewers Bourbon Barrel-Aged Barleywine

Bourbon Barleywine is spicy and a bit surly, a beautifully big sipper with soft hits of caramel, baking spice and oak. Spicy and impetuous now, with years of aging, this big brew will mellow with transcendent complexity and luscious mouthfeel. It’s a sturdy nightcap to slip on, during and after a rich, saucy meal. 11% and 33 IBU’s with notes of Baking Spices, Caramel, Austere

Graceful caramel and baking spice aromas awaken your palate, reminding you of a treasured bottle of Bourbon. A hearty sip brings out fig and dried plum, expectant of beers showing the benefit of age. Brown sugar and dried fruit linger on the pallet, highlighted by a sophisticated resonance of American oak.

Ferment Brewing Barleywine

The second annual release of Ferment’s Barleywine presents beer lovers with an 11% winter warmer, brewed with a blend of seven different malt varieties from England. The beer was aged for a year in French oak wine barrels and showcases deep layers of dried cherries, raisins and toffee flavors.