Tasting before bottling

For the first time today I tasted some Bomber Barleywine as I was bottling it, and it didn’t taste too good. Does the taste at this point in the proecess mean anything?

High gravity beers like barleywine generally take a significant amount of aging before they “come into their own”, so I wouldn’t be too concerned unless there’s something about the flavor of your beer that’s definitely “off”, such as a medicinal or other such inappropriate flavor. The normal flavors may appear somewhat harsh or unbalanced until the beer is properly aged.

IME a Barleywine will be best aged 1 year or more. Seriously. Takes that long for all the flavors to evolve. Ask others about this.

Prior to bottling a barley wine, it reminds me of taking a drink of hard liquor for the first time. It’s a potent flavor with a lot of recoil. :shock: If you said, “woooooo!” you probably did it right.

Give it a year or more and you’ll be very happy with it. :cheers: