Mikkeller: Three Floyds: Boogoop (Denmark: Barley Wine: 10.4% ABV)
Visual: Burnished cherry with massive mounds of froth with a slight ginger hue. The head leaves a lot of lace.
Nose: Cherry and cinnamon. Caramel. Salted toffee. Dry ginger. Wheat. Pomegranate. Sulphur and a slightly soured tone.
Body: Port. Glacier cherry. Malt biscuits. Cinnamon. Rhubarb. Slightly funky sulfur. White grapes. Vanilla custard and jelly. Tangerine. Apples.
Finish: Malt biscuits. Nutmeg. Ginger. Dry and bitter. Cloves. Unsweetened rhubarb. Tangerine. Grapefruit. Apricot. Cinnamon.
Conclusion: It turns out that Buckwheat is related to rhubarb. I mention that as it explains a lot. Primarily why one of the notes I got while drinking this was rhubarb. I thought I was going mad.
Between that and the tangerine this is quite the fruity and tart beer. The odd thing is that despite that, it is quite dry. There’s a good chunk of spice that dries it out, cloves and ginger spice, especially in the finish. What is odder is that there is something just a bit funky going on, a sulfur like touch mixed with what feels like Belgium yeast effects. When you mix that all in with the usually barley wine sweetness with cherry and malt do we get something decent?
let’s find out.
The sweetness is there but a lot less sickly that a lot of barley wines, more grape in sweetness and with wine like elements, the tartness helps as well in keeping it fresh. The funk and spice start out pretty heavy elements, and there the beer is slightly weaker in quality. The elements dominate too much. As you go on however they become background elements and just round out the base beer, like a cinnamon dusting on apples. Then the sweet wine undertones come out and really help out.
The base flavor range is huge in the fruit expressions, grapefruit, apricot , rhubarb, tart and sweet mixing together. The non fruit flavours, more rounding notes than anything else after the start, but still good. If you like citrus this is excellent, well crafted and rounded with tart and unusual flavours. I find the rhubarb touches a great quirk and really gives it a niche of its own. If you think you will dig that then this is wonderful.
Background: Ok, the bottle says Buckwheat Wine, which I presume is just a barley wine made with buckwheat. Which is pretty cool. Shared with friends who helped with the tasting notes, the beer is the fourth collaboration between the awesome Mikkeller and the excellent Three Floyds. Needless to say I was pretty excited about this one.
