Lagunitas Brown Shugga at Kite & Key

With the ongoing expansion of their brewery last year, Lagunitas wasn't able to brew Brown Shugga. Since it's a 10% barleywine, it just took up too much space in their limited number of fermenters for too long for them to be able to afford it. However, the expansion is finished now so it made its triumphant return this year!

Grapefruit hoppy nose. Body followed, sort of, with the grapefruit hoppiness starting things off. Quickly following was a big brown sugar sweetness and that's where this becomes kind of different than other american barleywines. The finish was sort of a mix of the two with sweetness and bitterness playing next to each other. At first they don't mix well and it was a little odd, but as you drink more and the hops faded into the background, the sweetness came to the front. It's a pretty interesting barleywine, that's for sure, and worth trying. It can be a bit polarizing as some think it's too sweet, but I thought it was pretty tasty.