A Little Bit About… Barley Wine
A selection of barley wines that are available in the UK
Barley wine is a strong pale Ale, coming in around 8 - 12% or higher. You'll find it brewed in the time around Christmas or in the winter months because it can be quite a special beer and it can be aged. Sometimes these beers will last 5, 10 or even 20 years. Because of this, you can find changing flavour profiles in barley wines depending on how long and how well it has been aged. Today we'll talk about the history of the barley wine style, brewing techniques and types for this beer, the style guidelines and beers that you can try to understand the barley wine style.
The History of Barley Wine
It's thought that barley wines have been brewed as far back as the 1400s. This comes in line with the use of hops. A barley wine uses a huge amount of malt making it very sweet, so the bitterness from hops was needed to balance the flavours and make this a drinkable beer. It was then brewed by the British Gentry through the 1500 to 1700s in their farm brew houses. As barley wine is a very strong beer, the name barley wine comes into play because it has a similar strength to wine. The first documented barley wine was from Bass and was called Number One Pale Ale. It was first seen in 1854. Bass Number One Pale Ale was also the second trademark ever registered in the UK, after the Bass red triangle for Bass’s Pale Ale. A cache of this beer was found at the Worthington White Shield brewery in 2006. The beer they found had been brewed in 1869 for a special occasion and is thought to be the oldest drinkable beer with complex flavours of sherry, dried fruit, Christmas pudding and smoky syrupy coffee. I wouldn’t mind giving that a try! Bass’s Number One Barley Wine was produced almost continuously until 1995. When that stopped production, it's thought that that was the last time that barley wine was produced in scale. Of course, small craft breweries have picked up the style and you can find small batches of it around in many breweries today.
Scattered Light barley wine from Siren Brew Co uses three different types of wood to add to the flavour profile.
Barley Wine Names and Designations.
You may notice in the UK we call a barley wine with two words ‘barley wine’, but in America, a barleywine is designated as one word. Up to the 1900s, and even today, the style has quite blurred lines with old ales and British strong ales. So those names can be used interchangeably by brewers. Barley wines were designated by a combination of Ks and X’s. The amount of X's on the name designated how strong it was. There were also interchangeable descriptors of double, double, double, strong, stale, stock, an old ale. Double and double double referred to the brewing technique. And at one point, double double was banned because of its strength.
Barley Wine Brewing Techniques
So what brewing techniques are used to create barley wines? Originally, double and double double referred to the first runnings of wort, which were then put back through the grain bed. Once through was a double and twice through the bed was double double. Then the wort was mashed again, this increased the sugar content, and therefore the strength and alcohol.
There is also the parti-gyle method. This is a British style of brewing where one or two runnings (the water being passed through the grain are taken from the same mash). Each running can be used to create a separate beer. For example, the first one can be used to make a stronger beer, and the second running can be used to make a medium strength beer, or, the two runnings can be blended to create a more consistent ABV. This is a practice that isn't used often today. However, Fuller's brewery in London still use this for some of their beers. Take a look at their Extra Special Bitter, their London Pride and their Cheswick Bitter.
Due to the strength of some of these barley wines, the yeast would struggle to produce the alcohol required and it would flag. That would mean that the yeast would need to be roused to continue the fermentation process. One way that brewers used to do this was by taking the barrel for a walk, literally the barrel would be gently rolled around the brewery to wake up the yeast. Additionally, extra yeast could be added to the brew.
Barley Wine Types
There are several versions of barley wines. You can get your English barley wines or American barleywine. You may also hear of wheat wines or oat wines. Let's have a look at each of those styles.
English Barley Wines from Fuller’s & Siren Brew Co
English barley wine is going to be gold to brown in colour, which is 8 to 22 on the SRM scale. The alcohol level will be high to very high, which is 8% to 12% ABV. With a moderate perceived bitterness of 35 to 70 IBUs, remember that the hop bitterness needs to be high to balance out the three to four times the amount of malt that you would find in a normal brew. In an English barley wine you are looking for flavours of biscuit, toast, caramel, and treacle and sometimes dark or dried fruits. English hop characteristics may also be present from earthy and herbal notes. The flavours will also age and change over time and with a shift in malt, this will enhance the toffee, caramel and sherry flavours along with the malt sweetness.
American Barleywine Dry The Rain by Vibrant Forest
An American barleywine is slightly lighter, with light amber to light brown colours, which is 10 to 19 On the SRM scale. It has the same ABV range high to very high at 8% to 12%, American versions may be slightly more bitter with a pronounced perceived bitterness level at 50 to 100 IBUs. An American barley wine will use American ingredients and therefore the use of American hops showing high levels of American hop aromas paired with caramel and toffee malt flavours.
A wheat wine or an oat wine are both very similar to your regular barley wine. However, as the name suggests, they will be made with more wheat and oats as part of the grain bill. This is going to change the mouthfeel and make it creamier and silkier.
How To Serve Barley Wine
Barleywine should be served at 10 to 12.7 degrees Celsius, which is 50 to 55 degrees Fahrenheit. You are going to want to use a snifter glass for this beer. That means that the bowl shape of the glass is going to open up all those complex flavours. The curvature at the top of the glass will capture the aromas, and it's also going to be a lovely sipper on a winter evening.
What Barley Wine Should You Try?
Golden Pride barley wine by Fuller’s
American barleywines can be quite difficult to find over in the UK. However, breweries that I have seen make them are Vibrant Forest, Elusive and Siren Brew Co. Around about Christmas and wintertime, breweries will start creating barley wine so keep an eye out for them then. You may also find some bottle shops will have aged versions that you can try and maybe do a vertical of, tasting the same beer through several vintages. JW Lee's Harvest Ale often comes out with a range of ages so that you can try them all together.
An easy English Barley Wine to get hold of is Fuller’s Golden Pride. You can find this in Waitrose, it is a very good example of an English barley wine. Look out for craft breweries creating barley wines with lots of adjunct flavours. Low Key in particular produces barley wines that use Tonka, raspberry and chocolate.
Living Out Loud chocolate, tonka and vanilla barley wine by Low Key
