Anchor Old Foghorn Barleywine Style Ale:
In the world of beer, there are few styles that are more polarizing than India Pale Ales(IPA) and Barleywines and while I’ve shown that the prejudice against IPAs is just plan silly, lets move on to the other style, Barleywine.  The name alone is alienating with many seeing as possibly a sweet beer (Anchor’s website says “Barleywine Style Ale is to beer much as port is to wine”) or a bitter concoction brewed by a bunch of half mad brew masters in-between cauldron cleanings.  Today’s beer, Anchor Barleywine Ale was actually the first barleywine I ever tried many moons ago and I really didn’t like it…actually I hated it and swore them off till now in this review.  Feel special people.  Also to note: this beer was introduced by Anchor in 1975 as the first modern American Barleywine and it apparently sparked interest in the style again and is responsible for us seeing this style floating around specialty grocery stores.  So what’s it like?  Glad you asked because I was going to tell you anyway.  The pour is a deep amber color that seems to act like a blend when it settled with a dark amber top and a medium transparent amber at the bottom, not much head on the beer to speak of other than a thin brown foam that dissipates quickly and leaves no lacing.  The nose is very complex with overall notes that range from sweet to sour with specific notices of caramel and roasted malts which directly translate to the palate.  The only difference between this brew’s taste and it’s nose is a more established sour note that reminds one of Flemish sour ales but it doesn’t linger that long.  This is a really good beer, it’s complexity and heaviness would make it more an after dinner beer because it’s flavoring would annihilate any food flavors you had on your plate and with 8-10% ABV, it might just put you into a post meal nap.