Hopefully Beirut Baklava Barley Wine by Hawkers Beer

This week’s beer comes once again from Melbourne’s Hawkers Beer.  Previously this blog featured Hawkers’ Freedom Units Triple NEIPA.  This beer is almost as far away on the beer spectrum as possible.  It’s officially the first baklava barley wine I’ve ever had (and I’m guessing it’d be yours too) and it’s awesome and it’s called Hopefully Beirut.

As I’ve written previously, barley wines aren’t for everyone.  I don’t love all of them.  In fact, I believe Nowhereman’s Mr Otter from a few weeks back was the first barley wine to make the blog.  They’re huge beers both in booziness and flavour.  And the inherent sweetness is sometimes a bit off-putting even for craft beer fans.  But all that being said, I do very much enjoy a barley wine when it’s done well.  And Hopefully Beirut most definitely is.

I haven’t seen too many ‘flavoured’ barley wines.  The flavours of a standard barley wine are big enough where it’s pretty hard to blend any additional flavours without them feeling instantly out of place.  But baklava barely wine sounded just crazy enough to work.

The danger with a baklava barley wine is that, as mentioned, barley wine has a bit of sweetness to it.  And baklava, being a honey-based dessert, also has a fair bit of sweetness.  So the danger of being over-powering was definitely a concern.  But somehow, Hawkers have managed to make the inherent sweetness of the barley wine to be baklava flavoured.  There’s honey, nutty, rosewater flavours with just the tiniest hint of fruitiness.  All of the baklava flavours are subtly there. 

It’s still a huge wallop of flavour.  This is a barley wine after all. It clocks in at an intimidating 10.5%. And it hits you like a honey dipped fist to the face.  But the way it all blends together is really impressive.

I know I’ve said it before, but barley wines aren’t for everyone.  But if you happen to be a barley wine fan, have this one.  It’s unique, it’s ambitions, but most importantly it’s really damn good.