Barleywine question

I opened a bottle of my barleywine tonight and shared it with my oldest son. It has only been in the bottle for a month and I wanted to try one. what shoudl I expect at this point carbonation wise? It had a definite alcohol bite but I know age will smooth that out, but it was still completely flat. Overall I can see it aging into a vewry smooth nice beer but I would think there would be some carbonation...not even a PSSSSTT when I popped the cap off.

I wouldn't expect too terribly much at this point especially if it's a really high gravity brew. What were your OG and FG?

Agreed. Let it go for quite a while yet and it will only get better. I have one in the bottle that will be 8 years old this fall and want to drink it, but am holding out. Getting hard as more time goes by though!

I know barley wines typically need a bit of age on them before they hit their prime, but how would that affect carbonation? The yeast still would've eaten the priming sugar and created CO2 after a month, right? Unless the higher ABV is making them work extremely slowly.

Probably a dumb question, but did you remember to prime this batch?

my higher gravity brews always take longer to carb. so i'd at least give it another month. Personally I'd let it sit for another 4-6 months before cracking anymore open, but that's just me.

danorocks17 said:

my higher gravity brews always take longer to carb. so i'd at least give it another month. Personally I'd let it sit for another 4-6 months before cracking anymore open, but that's just me.

Click to expand...

I was thinking the same thing. On a brew that you want to let age for a very long time you don't want to be cracking one open every month to see how the carbonation is doing.

I've also heard that if you tap on a bottle it will sound different when it is carbed and when it isn't.