Beer Review #1
Sierra Nevada Bigfoot Barleywine style ale vin. 2009
(yes beers have vintages, and can be as complex and awesome as a fine wine)

Ok for you non beer geeks this is how this works. Beer reviews generally call into consideration appearance (a) smell (s) taste (t) mouthfeel (m) and drinkability. Most are self explanatory like a s and t. Mouthfeel is what is best described as the body of the beer usually consitent of the protein content and unfermented sugars that give beers a thick/thin feel. For example, contrary to popular belief Guinness is not THICK, or full bodied at all, mainly its just Bud black. It is watery, without life and relatively flavorless, just check these reviews. Now a beer like Sam Adams Boston Lager is full bodied and has a lot of malty syrupy awesomeness. Drinkability is the want or capability of the reviewer to drink it as a session beer. Now, a session beer is the name given to beers brewed to be low alcohol so that workers in England could go to a pub, between shifts for a session…have a few and go back to the job and not be ham slam rectified. I am also throwing in a new intangibles group which I can just rate on overall experience, dankness of brew, if I would purchase it again etc. etc…intangibles (I). Each category graded out of 5 and averaged to get a final score.

So without further adieu…

A. Golden reddish color with a small white head that dissipates into a slight covering at the top of the beer. It looks awesome. 4.25

S. You can smell the hops all the way, and it doesn’t have that sweet kind of overbearing nastiness that are usually in barleywines. This thing smells hoppy, and the folks at SN know how to use hops to their advantage. I don’t detect any fruit really just hops, with maybe if I strain a tiny bit of sweetness. 3.75

(Now a note about my beer drinking habits: classically, I have had nothing but disdain for barleywines. They are usally way too grossly sweet and boozy [from the tons of leftover non-fermented sugars] and have virtually no hop presence. They are no fun to try to force down and I much prefer a stout if its going to be that strong)

T. The biggy…Tons of bitterness right in your face up front, I love it, after that we get a lot of malt, heavy malt sugars and sweetness to balance the bitterness of the huge hop grenade that went off in the front. Back end was definitely, boozy harsh, hints of dark fruit like raisins, plum, prune etc. 4

M. Thick and syrupy, which is classical barleywine-esque, but its pleasant, not like most of the others ive tried. 3.5

D. When it comes to barleywines I am sure I could drink a few of these in a sitting, which is bad considering the 9.6% ABV tag on it. 3.75

I. A surprisingly good beer for its style which admittedly I am not a huge fan of, but it was definitely good, maybe even a gateway to try other barleywines. 4.0
Total score: 23.25 AVG: 3.875

ps (from the other half)- BUCKETS