Lower De Boom Barleywine Style Ale

Review Date 8/5/2017  By John Staradumsky

  Style: American Barleywine   Brewery: 21st Amendment   Country: USA   State: California   $ Per OZ: $.27 (B)   ABV: 11.5%

Nips are back! Or at least, they’re back at 21^st Amendment Brewery of California with their Lower De Boom Barleywine Style Ale. The beer is sold in 4-packs of 8.4 ounce cans, which recalls for me the nightmare years of the 90s when everybody and his mother was selling barleywines in small bottles, usually 7 ounces. Anchor Old Foghorn, Rogue Old Crustacean, Big Time Old Wooly all came in 7-ounces, while Thomas Hardy’s Ale from England measured in at just 6.33.   

I hated those little bottles, especially because some of them ran $2.99 a pop (Crusty). Thankfully, they went away, despite efforts by Rogue to revive them in the early teens with their XS (Extra Small?) line of beers. Those ran $3.99 each. Yuck. 21^st Amendment Lower De Boom Barleywine Style Ale is the first beer I have seen in this package size in a few years.

21^st Amendment calls Lower De Boom an “American-style barleywine ale packed with citrus”. It has an alcohol content of 11.5% by volume with 92 IBUs. It runs $8.99 locally for a 4-pack, which seems a little on the high side for four small cans. That works out to 27 cents an ounce, substantially less than the 43 cents an ounce Rogue used to get for Crusty nips. It is, however, quite a bit more than the 18 cents an ounce Sierra Nevada Bigfoot commands.

21^st Amendment Lower De Boom Barleywine Style Ale pours to a beautiful dark amber color with almost no head and a luscious sweet caramel and fresh herbal hop nose. Taking a sip, the beer is resplendent with chewy caramel malt, fresh bready dough, light citrus, and an earthy, perfumey floral hop aroma and long dry bitter boozy finish. This one begs to be aged, I think. A bit more body would make it perfect, but it’s close to perfect. I’d give it 4 ½ stars, less a half taken back for the high price. And nip cans. I really hate those nip cans.