Lakefront My Turn - Chad Barleywine

Lakefront Brewing has been doing a lineup of beers called the "My Turn" series. It's where the various brewers employed by Lakefront take turns releasing their own take on beer styles for release. The beers themselves have the namesake of the brewer on the bottle as well as their description of the beer itself. The series is supposed to have 3 releases a year, what I have here is #4 as shown on the label. So it's safe to assume this has been going on for a while and I'll have to keep my eyes open for the other My Turns out there.

What I have here today is Barleywine Style Ale (Or Chad Barleywine) made by Chad Sheridan, the lead cellerman employed by Lakefront. It's an organic barleywine and it has a fairly hefty ABV of 12.5%; Something which I don't see fairly often with the barleywines I usually drink.

Chad Barleywine what looks like a dark Brown/Black color but it turns into a mildly hazy Crimson color when held up to a light, The head has a filmy slightly brown appearance that has average retention.

The nose mainly consists of toffee, caramelized malts, mild citrus hops, rye and some booziness. The aroma in particular lets you know that what you have is a stronger caliber barleywine and says to you that it isn't messing around.

That is, however, until you actually start drinking it. The flavor has some nice caramel, butterscotch, toffee, citrus hops and malts. The booziness that was present in the nose is nowhere near as strong here, I would even go as far as to say it's quite mild and almost blends in to the rest of the flavor.

The body is surprisingly smooth and creamy thanks it's moderate thick body and mild carbonation. It may be a strong barleywine but it goes down fairly easy.

It's a bit rough around the edges but at the same time it's surprisingly smooth and flavorful. Even more surprising was that it tasted nowhere near as boozy as I had expected, so points for that as well. If you hate barleywine, this isn't the beer for you. Anyone who loves the barleywine style, however, should check this out.

Lakefront Chad Barleywine - 8.25/10