I recently saw Kevin at an Allagash event at Tria and he was kind enough to give me four bottles of his homebrew. I've had his stuff once before and it was really good even compared to professional stuff so I was excited to check it out. The first one I decided to open was his Odd, a barleywine. Or at least I think he named it Odd, it's what was on the cap at least!
Complex and boozy nose. Not hot or alcoholic at all, just kind of sweet and well boozy. Also figs, apples, prunes, and raisins. Impressive really. As far as carbonation, he warned me it was "Tomme Arthur" style meaning incredibly low. Honestly it was almost still which didn't put me off even though it made it quite thick. My first sip wasn't quite as impressive as the nose unfortunately. Similar flavors existed up front, but the back end was a little empty for some reason.
This sort of reminded me of a beer that was getting a little old but he said it was only from about six months ago. There was still a lot of caramel, raisin, and brown sugar and they weren't boozy at all, they just didn't last very long in each sip. If those flavors were more prevalent through every sip this would have been quite awesome but even so it was still pretty good. He has a version of this mixed with a flemish red or something that I bet is good. Hopefully the latter fills in the light emptiness from this. Looking forward to trying his oaked imperial stout some time this week!
Update: Kevin has informed me ODD is an acronym and stands for Old Draft Dodger. He may have told me that when he gave me the beer too but I clearly forgot. That makes a lot more sense though I liked the idea of naming the beer Odd.
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