Battle of the Barleywines 2011-2012 (sorta)

A week or two ago, my friends and I had an epic mini-tasting featuring some awesome Barleywines. I took some pictures and figured a quick post was necessary. The beers featured were: Pelican Pub Mother of All Storms (2011), Goose Island King Henry (2011) and Firestone Walker XV (mostly Barleywine). All of these are barrel-aged, and in the case of FWXV a blend of both non and barrel-aged beer. The %ABV are all similar, 13.5%, 13.4% and 12.5% in the order mentioned above.

Pelican Pub Mother of All Storms: Definitely the most balanced and, IMO, well crafted beer of the night. Tons of complexity and an abundance of flavors that seemingly all come in equal amounts. Charred oak, deep caramel sweets, vanilla, peppercorn, raisin, cherry, whiskey and slight alcohol. With all of this blended smoothly and balanced, I found this to be the best made and my favorite beer of the night.

Goose Island King Henry: I found this to be a product of some amazing 23 year-old Pappy Van Winkle Bourbon barrels. The base beer is not that noticeable but instead serves as a strong base to deliver stellar whiskey flavor. A very close second to MoaS (I just found this to be more about the barrels than brewing skill). I found great flavors of huge Pappy Bourbon Whiskey, sweet raisin caramel, toasted oak, vanilla and some roast malts (left-over BCS Rare?). The whiskey flavor was incredibly smooth and tasty, probably the best Bourbon flavor I have experienced in a beer.

Firestone Walker XV: Another good beer but not quite like the first two. This one has an abundance of regular Barleywine with some of the whiskey barrels. Whiskey oak vanilla, nilla wafers, brown sugar and dark fruit/raisin spice. More of a blonde Barleywine and misses some of the deep caramel other examples of the style contain. Good but not an outstanding like the other two.