Ölbeat 111: Hornbeer Barleywine

Brewery: Hornbeer
Country: Denmark
Style: Barley Wine
Abv: 10 %
@RateBeer

What about the beer?

Colour is amber brown with a small tan head. Aroma has sweet berries (e.g. strawberry), grapes and flowery hops. Taste begins with sweet and heavy fruity bitterness. Sweet and sour mix of raisins and lemon takes over with strong malt flavour and sensible bitterness. Towards the end we get some piny and alcoholic elements. Aftertaste has dry piny alcohol and heavy fruity bitterness.

Beautifully strong and fruity barley wine, that resembles a fine dessert wine with grape-raisin flavour. In the end hoppy bitterness and piny dryness rip the brew apart from its distant Bordeaux cousins. Nice work from the Danish artisan brewery.

Ölbeat

The name of the brewery forced me to look for music with horns. Turning away every possibility to match a heavy beer with big band or jazz music, Ronnie James Dio came to the rescue. As the popularizer of the sign of the horns in heavy metal culture he showed me just the right track.

Dio: Stand Up And Shout (YouTube)

From the 1983 album Holy Diver, the song was written by Jimmy Bain and Ronnie James Dio.