Alliance - Thornbridge Brewery

BigMcLargeHuge

Arizona

3.9/5  rDev +0.5%
look: 4 | smell: 4 | taste: 4 | feel: 4 | overall: 3.5

Bottle courtesy of madmitch76, thanks again Ken. Pours copper-ish with gold edges and lasting tan head. The aroma is a mix of various light skinned type fruits along with prunes, dates, floral hops and spice hops with slick sweet malts in the background. The taste is sweet and slick with malts then moving into apricots, ripe cherries, some raisins and prunes. Toward the finish I get a murmuring of hops popping up from time to time. It seems more age will do it well. Wish I had more of this series around to let age.

Serving type: bottle

12-21-2009 03:57:47 | More by BigMcLargeHuge

mdagnew

United Kingdom (Northern Ireland)

3.85/5  rDev -0.8%
look: 4 | smell: 4 | taste: 4 | feel: 3.5 | overall: 3.5

375ml bottle bought online from Beermerchants.com.... Reserve 2007

Poured a nice copper amber colour with a slight haze. Slightly off white head poured pretty big thick and foamy then faded to light thin covering with thick edging... barely any carbonation... some decent thick lacing lines...

Aroma - Toffee and biscuit maltiness to the fore, orange marmalade fruitiness, light marzipan traces, toasted bread, quite buttery, butterscotch, slight hint of the alcohol just coming through, caramac, some earthiness...

Taste - Big blast of juicy fruits initially (bitter oranges mainly, some pears, lime, plums) followed by lots of strong warming alcohol (you can definitely tell this is 11%), piney and grassy hops, butterscotch, biscuity malts, caramel, again some marzipan / almond notes...

Feel - Very smooth (and maybe a little cloying)... medium / full bodied... a bit too much hot booziness to be very drinkable...

Overall - A pretty good barley wine... not as malty as i like but well made and definitely worth a try....

Serving type: bottle

04-08-2009 07:41:29 | More by mdagnew