Even when he was making beer that almost nobody drank at Italy’s little-known Rome Brewing Company more than two decades ago, Mike Murphy loved making barleywine.
“It’s just something I’ve always brewed from the early days, from when I was in Rome,” he says. “Even then I made barleywines, and I always made them more along the English style.”
Since then, Murphy’s barleywines have become somewhat better known. As brewmaster at Lervig Aktiebryggeri in Stavanger, Norway, Murphy has produced an annual barleywine every year since he took the job in 2010. Now known as Paragon, the beer is a cult classic—a toffee-and-coconut flavor bomb, bourbon barrel–aged, with its 2021 edition checking in at 13.8 percent ABV.
