Instead, we all go home and drink a little beer. I decided to seize the opportunity to do this and headed to the Burlingame Grocery, where I loaded up a basket with a bounty of that most delightful of winter ales, barley wine. Certainly, the alcohol content of barley wines, ranging anywhere from 8 percent by volume to 12 percent and more, can prompt comparisons to their grapey cousin, and indeed this is the usual interpretation. But, with their complexity of flavor, fruity notes and smoothness, one might as easily argue that they have some of the character of wine. The flavors of barley wines are always intense.
Abundant alcohol is also present, warming the palate and encouraging small sips.
Finally, time greatly changes the quality of a barley wine, turning it from a biting, bitter beer to a mellow, rich one. Here follow the beers, from youngest to oldest. Old Bawdy has a crisp, almost raw quality similar to that of fellow youngster Bigfoot and a kind of effervescence that bites at the tongue. It's the lightest of body of all those sampled, and the palate comes across with a very sharp, bitter almond note. I detected a slight off-flavor of cabbage in the bottle I had.