I'm going to be honest here for a minute. Right from the start, pure honesty because that's the kind of guy I am. Honest.I fucking love Barleywines. I absolutely fucking love them.
So late winter when the breweries start dropping their yearly barleywine releases I get excited. I anticipate the new Bigfoot, the new Sucaba, the new Old Ruffian, the new... Old Guardian.
That's right. Tonight I'm drinking another Stone release (two Stone reviews in a row, wtf?!), the 2013 Old Guardian. But this isn't your regular Old Guardian. Oh no, tonight, we've got the Oak Smoked Old Guardian. Needless to say, we're not fucking around with this barleywine. Let's get it poured!
The 2013 Old Guardian pours out an absolutely beautiful ruby red with about a half finger of a completely white head that is sticking around for what seems like a fucking eternity. As it gets absorbed back into itself it leaves behind a real nice sticky lacing all around the glass. It looks like Spiderman made an appearance. Luckily, he didn't steal my beer. There is quite a bit of carbonation on this beer streaming up from the bottom of the glass. The beer is very see through with some nice chill haze on the glass. It looks like a real nice barleywine. I mean, about as good as a barleywine can look... which is real nice... nice, right?
The first thing I get on the nose of this beer is campfire smoke. There is no doubt about it, this is a smoked beer. And it's very pleasant. I've never had a smoked barleywine. I'm getting a nice malty character coming through behind the smoke. Big surprise I know, it's a barleywine! If there wasn't a malt character then something would seriously be wrong. I'm getting a bit of a dark fruit character, maybe some plums. Also getting some cherries. Cherry pie filling, cherry juice. It's not too sweet. Smells real fresh. I'm getting some sweet raisins, maybe even a sugary raisin character. There's almost a quad like character coming through with the dark fruits, the sugary fruits and the sweet malts. Smells really great. Let's drink up!Right away I'm getting sweet malts and some dark fruit. Surprisingly enough, not a lot of smoke right away. I'm tasting the cherry juice like characters for sure. Middle of the mouth you get the hop bitterness that is a trademark of pretty much all Stone beers. It's not in your face like an IPA, but the bitterness is there. You get that campfire smoke flavor here as well. It's not overpowering and not as strong as the nose. I'm a bit surprised. I thought it'd be the first thing I was hit with. Back end of this beer you get a lot of earthy, wood like characters. It's definitely from the Oak. It's very nice. There is a lot of a charred wood here. More smoke. The slightest, and I mean slightest, bit of alcohol on the back end. At 11.4% abv it's to be expected I think. It doesn't take away from anything on this beer though.
Overall, this is a really solid beer from Stone. I'm not the biggest Old Guardian fan. I find it to often be a bit too hoppy. The oak/smoke in this beer is real nice at cutting the hop bite that I've always found in the OG. I'd be very interested in trying the barrel aged version of this which I believe just came out as well. For the price (I think I paid $11 for it) I'd say it's well worth it. If you like Barleywines and smoked beers, this is for you. I'd like to try this with a little age on it. Maybe try it again in December and again later in 2014.
Rating: A-
Wife hated it. Said it sucked. Not a fan of smoke/campfire. She's lame. More for us!
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