Pours clear with a quarter-inch of light tan foam. Retention is not lacing while lacing dots the glass here and there.
Aroma is caramel and toffee with nice plum character. There is a playful alcohol and sweetness. The sweetness seems to grow a bit.
Taste brings the caramel, toffee, and plum. The end brings a huge hit of booze with brown sugar sweetness. The alcohol burns on the way down. There is a strange flavor towards the end that is "off".
Big body that makes the lips a little sticky from the sweets at two years old. Carbonation is medium, which is a bit surprising.
I wonder if more age here would help the alcohol as it creates the sensation of one-dimensional. Not a bad beer, just possibly too hard to get based on production numbers. Enjoy!
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Reviewed: Wednesday, August 22, 2012 at 16:09:36
Tasted: Wednesday, August 22, 2012
$0.00 for 12 oz. bottle
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One fine body…
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Beer Notes
Important: let this beer warm to at least 55° before enjoying. With most Divine Reserves, we mention that they should age well. With this one, we are recommending aging it. It should age for 5 to 10 years. This is best done cold. DR10 is a big, strong, spicy barleywine with malt and alcohol dominating and a pleasant hop finish. The aroma has malt and spice from the alcohol. It was brewed with 6 different malts plus brown sugar. Columbus hops were used for bittering and it was finished with US Goldings. It had a very high level of attenuation for this style of beer which is why the aging is so important.