Gnarleywine

Gnarleywine


YIKES! What did we brew? Why of course it’s the GNARLEYWINE! When you brew a monster barleywine that takes 9 hours, looks this “pretty” and has an original gravity of 1.111, what else could it be called. This will be one strong mama bittered and aromafied with all glorious American C-hops, with no Cascade (thank you very much!).


Garrett and I pumped out this puppy in his garage on Sunday while anticipating rain that never really came until the very end. It was a great day, we sampled the 3 beers he had on tap: an Oktoberfest, a super-charged Amarillo Pale Ale, and a Robust Stout and also tried 6 American Barleywines to help us have pretty little hop dreams. We tried: Fred from the Wood, Bigfoot, Blithering Idiot, Old Horizontal, Old School Barleywine and … one dipped in wax that I forget it’s name. Regardless, all delicious all different interpretations upon a style. Next year we’ve discussed brewing an English Barleywine.


We also had enough sugar left in the grain to pull off 5 gallons of 1.035 wort to can as starter wort. After the long brew day Garrett volunteered to can it all by himself while watching the kids the next day. I got an email at almost 1AM saying he had finished, doesn’t sound like fun – thanks for going the distance.


All in all I can’t wait to try this one, though it may not be for many months!


Gnarley Bri


(Me. Since I’m never in my own pictures.)

4 Responses to “Gnarleywine”

  1. Fool Circle - Artisanal Ales » Blog Archive » Stewart’s 12th Anniversary Says:

    […] also compare ours to all of the ones Stewart’s would have. Garret has split his half of the Gnarleywine into two half sized kegs. One keg he left alone and let the beer age, the other keg he added oak […]

  2. Fool Circle - Artisanal Ales » Blog Archive » Vader/Tripel Bottling Says:

    […] for 3+ months, there isn’t much viable yeast left to do the job of carbonating the beer (ala Gnarleywine style). So, I add the measured amount of corn sugar, and a measured amount of rehydrated dry […]

  3. Fool Circle - Artisanal Ales » Blog Archive » Gnarleywine, revisited Says:

    […] in October of 2006 Garrett and I brewed a 10 gallon batch of American Barleywine called the Gnarleywine. The brew day was long, the grain bill was large, and we used a ridiculous amount of hops. But […]

  4. Fool Circle – Artisanal Ales » Blog Archive » APA with Saison Yeast Says:

    […] has been some minor talk of Garrett and myself revisiting brewing a barleywine together, ala the 2006 Gnarleywine, so I’ll keep you all posted as that develops […]

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