Nerd Note: I neglected to mention the 2006 bottle I tried had an unusually high ABV (13.25%) which of course just added to the intensity of flavours. Here’s a list of the recent Old Stock Ale vintages complete with ABVs kindly ‘lifted’ from www.ratebeer.com

pre-2006 ABV: 11.4%.
2006 vintages: 11.6% & 13.25%.
2007 vintage: 11.7%.
2008 vintage: 12.5%.
2009 vintage: 11.5%.
2010 vintage: 11.7%.

..or a hog in heaven, because if hops are your thing, you’ll feel like both.

Hog Heaven is a barley wine style beer from Avery Brewing, a respected US brewery that specialises in taking old world beer styles and giving them a huge American twist.

Barley wine, despite the misleading name, is actually a strong ale that became popular in England in the 19^th century. At that time England was often at war with the French and it was considered the duty of true patriots among the upper classes to drink beer rather than wine.

English barley wines tend to be elegant, rich, smooth, wine-like beers that can be stored for a quarter of a century or more.

American-style barley wines on the other hand are generally far, far more aggressively hopped  and higher in alcohol, with ABVs that can land anywhere from 8-15%.

Hog Heaven is packed with US Columbus hops, delivering a tongue-curling 104 IBUs. IBUs – International Bitterness Units – is a measurement that indicates just how bitter a beer is. Technically the scale goes from 1-100, after which the tongue reacts like a slug that’s had salt poured on it.

However modern brewers have worked out a way to ‘trick’ the palate by adding huge amounts of malt to make the beer sweet enough to balance out some of the bitterness.  Hog Heaven succeeds in doing just this, with rich vanilla toffee malts doing just enough to hold back the onslaught from the grapefruit, pine resin and quinine hops.

Rather than a hog this is more of a wild boar of a beer and can be a bit brutal for those of you not used to drinking US hop-bombs. However if you want to tame it a bit try pairing it with a medium strength blue cheese – a stunning combination!

Hog Heaven

A Barley wine style beer from Avery Brewing in the US

9.2% ABV

Article number:  11543