Competition Entry: American Barleywine vs. English Barleywine

Hey all!

For those of you with experience judging barleywines in past competitions, for a well-aged example (> 8 months old), are you able to tell an enormous difference between the two types of barleywines, American and English??

The only reason I ask is that I have an English barleywine brewed already and we have an American Barleywine club competition. I feel as if it would be somewhat difficult to be able to differentiate an English barleywine amongst other American barleywines unless all of the American ones were younger and still had a great deal of that citrus/pine American hop aroma/flavor...

Let me know what y'all think!

At 8 months, the American barleywine will still be considerably more bitter than the English, even if the hop flavor has faded a little.

Taste it, then compare it with the BJCP guidelines. If it matches the description, I'd say you're good to go.

http://www.bjcp.org/2008styles/style19.php#1b