Imperial Ale or Barley Wine?

[Rukula]

As far as i know, "Imperial" in the beer world mean higher ABV than regular beers (about 7-10 ABV i think..) To make those extra ABVs, you need more grains, and to balance out the sweetness, you need more hops. So in my mind, Imperial means "More of everything" (and I love it)

I have never tasted anything named "Barley Wine", but i know its a thing. And I'm having an hard time figuring out what the difference is. It seems to me like Imperial Ales and Barley wine is kinda like the Stout VS Porter thing. Not to start any discussion, but both names are often used about the same beer.


So! I would really like it if some of you had a good explanation about the differences between the two. If you are familiar with the Stout VS porter thing, i would like to know the important difference between the two. Like, if someone hands you a glass of the brilliant black beer, what makes you go "This is a stout" or "this is a porter" ?

And what can make you determine than an ale is Imperial or a Barley Wine?

 

[oz11]

If you would like to know more about porter/stout differences/similarities and history then take a trip over to Ron Pattinson's pages where he disputes many modern commonly held beliefs (particularly by our American cousins). Be warned, if you're really interested in this sort of thing there is an awful lot to get through and it can become very time consuming!

"Imperial" as a label attached to strong beers seems, again, to have come from the USA, as originally you would only tend to come across it in reference to Imperial Russian Stouts.

Enjoy your reading :)

 

[Asalpaws]

I know what you mean, I've not had many commercial barley wines but I recently had Green Jack's Ripper. The taste put me in mind of Belgian Triple!

As I understand it a lot of barley wines start out very hoppy tasting but with time the malt comes to dominate.

Some people call Robinson's Old Tom a barley wine, I find that the hops are quite prominent (WGV I think?), what ever you call em, high ABV brews are cool. T

 

[fuggledog]

hmm... well i suppose it depends if you want a 'historically based' answer about the origin of these terms and the beers they described or a general 'i think x' type response. Not being a brewing historian i can't say much about the historical origins, although from hanging around at Ron Pattinson's blog, my understanding is that 'barley wine' is a rather generic term for a strong ale (say from around 7% + ) that is vaguely in the 'Burton ale' type (copper coloured, sweet 'tacky' and malty but with a strong-to-balanced bitterness - e.g. Marston's Owd Roger). 'Imperial' i think used to be a monika for the strongest/premium export version of a particular beer (e.g. imperial stout). I don't think 'imperial ale' is really a style as such, but does seem to be used quite a bit in American advertising for some strong beers (e.g. 'imperial IPA' meaning 'strongest IPA').

regardin porter and stout - Ron's research as reported on his blog and various books seems pretty clear that stout originally meant 'strong'. so you could have a 'stout porter' or a 'pale stout', meaning a strong pale ale. As porter became more popular the term 'stout' became more associated with porter than other beer styles, and was largely a term meaning strong porter. at the far end of the porter/stout spectrum you might get two beers that were quite different (e.g. imperial stout vs common or garden pub porter), but the grists etc. were often very similar, if not the same.

in modern terms i think it depends how the brewer wants to market their beer. you could for example sell a 'stout' at 4% and a porter (traditionally the weaker beer) at 5% and claim the porter was more a recreation of a historical beer. or you might make the porter the lighter version of the two, or add chocolate malt to the porter and roast barley to the stout etc etc. However you decided to differentiate porter and stout, you can probably find a justification for it, but personally i find it more meaningful to see porter and stout through a historical lens - that is that stout is a strong porter.

sorry for the ramble and general paraphasising of another's work.

cheers,

b

 

[Dr Mike]

Another source worth getting is Amber, Black & Gold by Martyn Cornell. He also has a blog (http://zythophile.wordpress.com/).

I'm pretty sure 'imperial' only has historical precedent in Imperial Russian Stout and the word has only recently been adopted for strong versions of other styles.

Barley Wine is also a relatively recent term for ales which used to be called Burton Ales as fuggledog says although pale barley wines (eg Gold Label) are not really in this style.

As far as Porter vs Stout goes, as far as I can tell, the only difference historically is strength. Which leads to the conclusion that Draught Guinness is really a Porter as it is the weakest product they make and neither is it strong in an absolute sense.

Back to the original question, I think an imperial IPA, being a recent style would have buckets of aroma and flavour hops (probably American) whilst a Barleywine would be more malt flavoured, all be it with considerable bitterness. The IPA would probably have a greater attenuation as well.

 

[oz11]

Well, look at this recent post from Ron P...clearly there is nothing new in the term "Imperial" :)