500 ml bottle. Beautiful, deep, dark mahogany body with a fair beige head. Aroma is totally dominated by islay whisky - peat, smoke, oak and alcohol. Flavor is sweet, smoked malt, lots of peat and oak with a hint of vanilla and warming alcohol. It’s a good balance between the sweetness and the bitterness behind this entire whisky flavor. But I’m not really sure that Islay whisky is my thing and at least not sure that this goes well with beer, but this ale definitively keep what its promises by name. Personally I will feel a bit stupid giving a poor score based on my personal likings as long as this is definitively real stuff and high quality, no doubt. Just have to rate on what I smell, see, sense and taste – and that’s a really well made beer with lots of flavors from islay whisky. By the way, I spent almost one hour on this bottle, and by the end I actually was getting my taste for this, I could easily have opened another one as I’m sitting here and writing, cheers!

My choice for solstice celebration. 500ml bottle, batch 428, bb.200513. Bubbly, fawn coloured head with satisfying retention. Dark, rusty brown body. Prominent and inviting smell of smoked whisky. Peated, whisky-like malt up front in flavour gradually turning into a delicious interplay with chocolate malts and a discreet touch of liquorice. A bittering, spicy dryness to the finish. Rounded mouthfeel. Very nice, slow sipper under the polar darkness. Still a month to go before the sun returns, but we are on the right track (Tromsø, 21.12.2009).