Victory
Old Horizontal Barleywine
Review Date
When I visited Victory back in July of 1997 and got the
grand tour, I spied a single bottle of this stuff in the cold storage room.
I attempted to bribe the tour guide into selling me a bottle, but to his
credit he stood firm and said they were aging some Horizontal for Christmas
1997. I did get some later that year though and here's what I thought then:
And remember, try a new beer today, and drink outside the box.
Also From This Brewery
Old Horizontal is a slightly burnt orange in color with little head and
carbonation, as one would expect from a barleywine. It has a big, sweet
malty nose and a wonderfully complex palate combining yeasty notes of fresh
bread and butterscotch with a citric fruitiness and alcoholic warmth. The
hops balance the beer nicely in the finish and linger just long enough to
let you know you've tasted a real beer. Good sized chunks of yeast danced
around the glass when I poured, slowly settling to the bottom.
Right now I have a bottle of the November 1998 batch in front of me. I
scored a case of it with a year of age already on it at a PA beer
distributor at the end of 1999. It's pretty much just as I've described
above. Very malty, lots of alcoholic warmth (bottle says 11% by volume), the
bread and butterscotch in abundance. Notes of raisin and prune thrown in
too. This is a malty, yeasty barleywine rather than a hoppy one. It ages
nicely, this is a style that ages nicely. I'm sipping it on a very cool June
night, and it's well suited to that climate. As per usual for big beers like
this, I prefer them as an aperitif or digestif rather than an accompaniment
to cuisine.
