Friday, January 22, 2010

Stone, Old Guardian, Barley Wine Style ale


I just poured myself a glass of bourbon (pictured left) and popped open a 22 oz. bomber of Stone brewery's Barley Wine Style Ale.

I like the beers Stone makes. This one has a really good nose. It reminds me of walking down a mountain trail with a bunch of honey tucked into my rucksack. Here and there I pass some mountain laurel and think about picking a sprig for my love, here and there I dunk my canteen into a stream and pop in an iodine tablet so as to avoid getting Giardia. It's a very pleasant experience, and by the time I am at the bottom of the trail, I am quite drunk on the mountain air. Some alpine dairy farmers seem to be having a pow-wow behind the chalet, and when I listen closely it seems that they are talking about how I will become the next president. I plunk my ass down on a moss covered rock and write poetry. I hear the various and sundry sounds of hand-hammered cow bells pinging off the snow-capped peaks, and then I get out my little leather journal and compose a couple sonnets about wildflowers and mountain streams, and the ethereal nature of romantic love.

Actually, I don't do any of that, and so I say goodbye. Here are the stats on Stone's Old Guardian Barley Wine Style Ale:

$7.99 per 22 oz. bottle; 11.3 percent alcohol by volume; round, "honey-like" taste, somewhat bitter, somewhat sweet; also, kind of like eating flowers; starts out prickly on the tip of the tongue, then gets kind of hoppy around the mid-tongue, then relaxes into something mellow (and again the honey), and then fades into something nice and bitter.

Overall, I probably won't buy this beer again, though I do approve of its high alcohol content very much.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

At the map room in Chitown, they have a whole little section of little taps with all sorts of different ales. There is nothing like that here in LA. There are reasons to leave every now and then. Paul's roommate Max made fun of me for going to this cocktail lounge by myself cuz I'm poor, but then when he heard I went to the Map Room he settled down. Paul's boss at a steak and booze joint lived above the maproom. He died, RIP Frank.