I love beer. More so, I love big beers, and beers don't get much bigger than barley wines. And Victory Brewing does one helluva job with their Old Horizontal. Old Ho', as it is affectionately known, is a winter seasonal, meant to warm the soul. Weighing in at 10.5% ABV, it does just that, and with a drinkability that can put you just as the name says, horizontal. Here's what I had to say about it.
12 oz bottle. Pours clear amber with red hues. foamy, two finger beige head that lingers with great lacing. Nose is bready and caramel malt with some raisin and a touch of alcohol. Huge malt flavor with some fruity notes, plum and raisin. A bitter finish with a good amount of alcohol warmth that lingers into the fruity, bitter after. Very good barley wine. Drinkable, almost too much for something 10.5 ABV.
Great beer from a PA brewery.
On the homebrew tip, we cracked one of the Batch XI Dark IPAs on Tuesday. Wow. After 10 days in the bottle its already great. An interestingly hoppy nose, and a rather complex mix of malt and hops with some fruity esters from the yeast. I'm pumped to see what happens in the next week or so.
Stick around, fools!
Dave
3 comments:
Old Ho' is one of my favorites. Big! Hoppy! Malty! I'll need to do another tasting to give more details.
The thing about this one is that over the years it mellows. The huge hop flavors give way to malt. They do vertical tastings at Victory at least once a year and its interesting to see how time affects this one.
Have you had Hop Wallop? I like it too, but, not as much as Old Ho'.
Cheers!
Hmmm...forgot to sign up for followup comments to I'll do with this post ;-)
I'm excited to see how this is in 6 months and then a year. Sure is tasty now, though. As for Hop Wallop - Yes, I've had a bunch of it. I haven't rated it yet. A coworker and I put a huge dent in a case of it (all but two) during the WVU/Louisville Thursday night game back in October. It was a fantastic October night in western PA, and we had a little fire in his back yard and the TV on the patio. We've come to the realization that his neighbors probably hat him.
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