Wednesday, November 03, 2010

Saint Arnold Divine Reserve 10

Its been almost year since the last Divine Reserve was released, but finally the time has arrived. As always actually getting your hand on some Divine Reserve is part of the fun and if you want to hear about it head over to Lushtastic for a good story (read the comments!). However this post is not about the hunt, but the beer. DR 10 is an English Barleywine based off of the winning recipe from the Big Batch Brew Bash as brewed by Chris Landis. This Barleywine weighs in at a very hefty 11%. Lucky for me I was able to obtain 2 six packs, but I also headed downtown on Tuesday the release day to try it on draft at Anvil Bar and Refuge which is what my tasting notes are based off of.
The Beer: Served in a tulip glass this beer poured a ruby color with a good sized taupe colored head. Caramel, and sweet malts, mild hops and some alcohol are on the nose. The mouthfeel is medium bodied, very sweet and malty, and a good deal of hoppy bitterness. Earthy, spicey instead of citrus-y grapefruit, I'm not sure what the hop varietal is, but its definitely not your NW American hops. It leaves a resiny finish though. Some notes of cherry as well. Very hot alcohol flavor, raw and young the beer definitely needs some age to it. Its got a great base and the beer is good and drinkable now, but I think it will be amazing in a couple of years. I'm not going to give my final grade on this one yet as I don't think its at its best right now. I think this beer has some great potential though.

2 comments:

Bruce R said...

I had a bottle at Boondoggle's last night. It was in much more drinkable condition than I expected. Also, it was much drier than I expected. Quite nice.

Lee said...

I was not impressed with this year's DR, but admittedly, am not impressed with much that St. Arnolds does. I'm a Houstonian and am all about supporting my local breweries, but I just have higher hopes for more creative beers. Definetely not worth the herculean effort that it takes to get your hand on a 6-pack, when there are so many other great barleywines out there.