Barleywine Blending Part Two
Last week, I gave a list of the classic barleywine beer blends that Judy Ashworth served at her pub in Dublin, California. Looking over that list got me thinking about two things: the principles of beer blending art and the joy of making up names.
One of the beautiful things about being on the bleeding edge of the beer cocktail revolution is that while there is a long list of old standards, by in large, the field of beer blending has yet to be explored. The main reason that beer blending is one of the most interesting subjects today is that, as Stan Hieronymus says, “These are our beer glory days.” The US has more craft breweries in operation producing more different kinds of beer than ever before in North American beer history. It’s this diversity that is the raw material of the beer blending enthusiast.
Just thinking about Judy Ashworth’s barleywine combinations led me to come up with some of my own barleywine blends based on beers from my geographic area. Both Brooklyn Brewery and Blue Point make barleywines: Monster Ale and Old Howling Bastard (respectively). So I went out to the beer store and picked up some bottles to experiment with.
To make a Long Island version of “A Foggy Night in the Sierras” (barleywine and pale ale), I could mix Monster Ale with Brooklyn Pale Ale and call it a Yeti. Pale Monster? Except, no one has ever seen a Yeti on Long Island. Or maybe a mix of Winter Ale and Monster could be a Yeti? Anyone for a Brown Monster? But wouldn’t that be a Bigfoot? And that’s already taken by Sierra Nevada.
Speaking of Sierra Nevada’s Bigfoot, it makes an excellent blend with their IPA.
(Similar to Ashworth’s “The Ultimate Hop Head Ale”.) I mixed Bigfoot and the IPA half and half and I liked the combination better than I like either on their own. Seriously. The Bigfoot is a bit too sweet and the IPA a bit too hoppy. The combination is still on the sweet side, but its much more balanced.
I have several more Barleywines in my cellar. What I’m doing (slowly, not all in the same night) is working my way through the list and blending together anything that seems reasonable. Back in Ashworth’s day, commercial barleywines weren’t all that common, but today we have a larger, more varied palette to create our own beer blends.
These are indeed our beer glory days.
