275ml bottle - Pours dark amber with no head. It smells of English malts with some dark fruit notes. There’s zero carbonation. It’s not what I’d call watery, but the total and absolute lack of carbonation doesn’t work well, in my opinion. Was it not sealed well to last for years? I don’t know. There’s some sourness and wine-like character to it that others have described. It’s interesting and roughly tied for the oldest beer I’ve had, but like the other one that old that I rated (a Nice Chouffe), perhaps it’s past its prime.

Rating #1000!
And glad I am that I didn’t have to resort to Harrison’s Millennium! Corked 275 ml bottle, poured into goblet. Close to a ten-year old beer, my oldest so far. Sweet wine and honey smell. Pours bubbly with a thin head and a sherry colored body. Most of the conditioning yeast stayed behind in the bottle, so mine is nicely clear. Smelling it in the glass, I pick up some of the cork. That carries through to a sort of corked red wine taste. A little sour, yes. Grape taste laced with alcohol rather than a fine wine. These impressions overwhelm any basic malt & hops notes. I liked the initial impression, but it does run too far off what I think was intended by the brewers. Or maybe this is what we should expect from a ten-year old corked ale. Still interesting, and a nice choice for my ascension to beer godhood (cue trumptes).
Thanks to kramer17801 for sending this in trade last year!

1997 bottle shared with OldGrowth on 3/4/06. Laughable (but in a laughing with Gales, not laughing at Gales way) appearance of almost no carbonation, no head, no anything; lifeless. Golden raisin with bright copper tinges and of course plenty of sediment. Nose is intriguingly dry, with dry golden raisins, chardonnay-like notes, dry, pale malted barley and some very dry peach and nectarine notes. As well, a raw, dried-cedar or oak wood note is quite sharp on end. But some bubbly, sticky fruit note, even past that, rounds it. Wow, a rollercoaster of an aroma.
The flavor has taken a little slide over the years, unfortunately. Bready oxidation, yeast dullness and too soily/dirty a brett or lactic note? I swear there’s some other yeast in it. But something lightly dirty, ultimately. Sharp alcohol notes, dry, yellow fruit skins. Some stickiness fails to hold the loose body together. Even looking it as a wine-like body, it still fails, in my opinion.

A rare beer brought by Laurent Mousson, 7 years old, in the classic Gale’s corked bottle
Brown color; almost flat. Wood, cask, cork, caramel aroma, too much alcohol. A bit thin; Madeira character, very complex and peculiar, but also too much alcoholic.

I guess George Gale beers take some getting used to - much like my bottle of POA, this sucker is flat as flat can be - tart, lambic-like aroma, with some mustiness and spice - body is pretty thin, but oddly, the flavor is very subtly complex - tartness up front makes way for some apples and spices, vinous notes, then a subdued roastiness, perhaps some chocolate - amazingly well-masked alcohol - there are a lot of things going on in this brew, but there are also qualities that, I suppose, all of their products have that really aren't like beers most of us are used to, and that really need to be understood - interesting stuff.