Beer Review: Monster Ale Barleywine (Brooklyn Brewery)

In this blog, I often describe things as monstrous or beastly, because I tend to like things that can fit into such categories. When a beer is given the name "Monster," then I know it's going to be a great fit for my blog. Brooklyn Brewery's Monster Ale definitely deserves its title and has been on my shopping list a handful of times. It's highly drinkable and a great introduction to barleywines for folks who may not have had one before.

The beer pours a dark, dull amber, with a very small head. The aroma is heavy with notes of grape and honey, with a sip providing a richer version of the same flavors, with a slight hint of hops. The beer as a whole showcases the strength of a barleywine, as it somewhat treads the line between a dark beer with light hop elements and a stronger bottle of mead. The beer is intense and sweet without being thick or syrupy, and it leaves a light, crisp aftertaste. It masks its high alcohol content (10.1%) behind a veil of sweet and vibrant flavors, which makes for a fantastic drinking experience that warrants sharing instead of overindulgence. This is a relatively standard barleywine experience, but being standard doesn't make this boring. Instead, this is one of my easy go-to beers when I want more than a single bottle and I want a solid and drinkable barleywine.

As with most of my beers, this comes highly recommended, even if it doesn't sound like your normal cup of tea (or glass of beer). I'm pretty sure this beer is available year-round, and accordingly it should be a nice addition to your fridge in the near future.

Beer Review: Weyerbacher's "Insanity"

So, I'm cheating today and reviewing a beer I already love. This is probably the first barleywine I've reviewed, and is one of my favorite beers of all time. Weyerbacher's Insanity is an oak-aged version of their Blithering Idiot barleywine, which is also an incredible beer. The worn-out saying is that insanity can be defined as doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results. I personally believe this beer should be consumed again and again regardless of results. It's absolutely delicious. You may notice this review is shorter than usual. I really don't need to say much about this beer other than how crucial it is. Read below for details, then get yourself to your local beer retailer and buy this before somebody else does.

The initial aroma upon pouring is sweet with hints of honey and raisins. It's not the sickly sweetness of fruit-flavored beers, nor is it wine-like. It's a rich and deep aroma that invites you to lose yourself in a stellar glass of beer. Initial sips taste similar to the scent, but also with slight hints of coffee as well as the sharp and wonderful bite of bourbon of the oak casks. Insanity is a beautiful opaque brown, appearing and tasting much softer than its remarkably high (11%ABV) alcohol content. Due to its potency, and the fact that your friends and loved ones deserve such a great beer, this is one I highly recommend sharing. It's sold in four packs, but even splitting a single bottle with a friend is sufficient in my book. Normally I have more to say about a beer this great, but there really isn't much more to say. This beer is uncommonly good and you need to buy a bottle and try it for yourself. It's not the cheapest beer on the market, but it's worth the high cost. If any beer on this blog so far could be considered a "top 5" type beer of mine, this is absolutely it.