A dark mahogany amber ale with a thin dissipating white head. Aroma is pleasantly woody, light olives , a bit of burned sugar, and rather musky. In mouth, I tend to agree with Todd. Lots of residual sugars which do not meld with the oaky notes, a lot of sweetness in final, a bit thin. Overall, disappointing. Bought at the LCBO late 2006.

50 cL bottle, thanks to Jens for letting me have a taste of this! Pours clear and golden yellow with a slowly diminishing and white head. Mild aroma yet with a light hops and solid wooden note. Flavour is quite speciel with distinct notes from the barrels providing a distinct aftertaste that is immensely poweful and lasting, as one coined it: notes similar to those of fresh peeled shrimps shells. Interesting although not my kind of beer.

[January 2007, from Waitrose, Marlow]. I note that the beer is stronger than your regular ale, but comes in a smaller bottle, so I assume the extra 40p of my hard-earned cash I had to part with was for the value-added packaging! Having finally extricated my beer and made a quick visit to our cardboard recycling box, I was able to get at my beer and... woah, this is a weird one. The horrible sour smell from the bottle nearly put me off drinking it, but I persevered. The texture is smooth, but it’s the taste that grabs your attention. Tastes sweet, then more sourness, then as you get into it I caught glimpses of malt, vanilla, unripe bananas (I think this accounts for the sourness), ripe bananas as well, whisky, lemon and caramel. Oooh, was that some sawdust as well?! And.... errrm... margarine? I got the impression that someone is going for the complexity of a trappist beer, and simply hasn’t had enough practise at at mellowing the flavours so they complement one another. Instead the different levels of taste fight for dominance in your mouth with the sour green banana coming back to give the others a good hiding at regular intervals. So we have enormous depth but no refinement - the layers of flavour simply don’t sit easily with each other. Some will find this beer interesting, others simply bizarre - I’m wavering between the two. It’d probably be a good introduction for a newcomer to the noble art of beer tasting, and certainly provokes discussion. However, at present I’m not convinced that this beer is actually designed for drinking! I know for a fact I’ve never tasted a beer like this! Maybe it would mellow with cellaring (although I firmly believe that beers should be sold at the ideal drinking age, so I’m not having with any of this storage malarkey!). I also note that the brewers have only been in business since 2003, so I’ll be interested to see what their future beers are like - this one is intriguing and shows promise, but needs a little more time spent getting the recipe exactly right - if they keep persevering with this I think it could become a super beer. Perhaps it would also help to bottle condition it? Errm... is that cough mixture coming through now? *hic* feeling a bit drunk... and very confused... what just happened to my mouth?

Bouteille 330ml, courtoisie de Hogtownharry. De couleur dorée foncée et claire. Nez assez boisé (fût de chêne), fruité (pêches sucrées, léger d’agrumes), malté de caramel butterscotch sucré et avec des notes de toffee et de houblon herbeux aux notes florales. Moyenne-mince en bouche avec un pétillement moyen-bas et une texture moyennement crémeuse et aux faibles notes liquoreuses (whisky). Moyen goût fruité (abricots, léger d’agrumes, notes de pêche, de marmelade et traces de pommes) accompagné d’un goût de vanille boisée (fût de chêne asséchant, présent toute la gorgée) lors de l’entrée en bouche auquel se rajoute un goût malté de caramel butterscotch avec des traces de biscuits au miel et de toffee pui en finale l’on retrouve une légère amertume de houblon herbeux ainsi qu’un léger goût de whisky sucré. Post-goût long et sec, composé d’un goût boisé (fût de chêne), légèrement amer de houblon herbeux et avec des petites notes aigres de fruits (noyau de pêche et léger zest d’agrumes).

Bottle: Looks like cream soda gold with a large white head. Aroma caught me off guard with a vinegar hint up front, before mellowing out into some softer notes of bourbon. Sweet flavor with lots of bourbon and some malt and toffee. Wow, plenty of woody notes. Still a little sweet comes through.

Bottle. A clear, golden beer with a small off-white head. Sweetness, vanilla, cookies, some butterscotch and a light fruityness in the aroma. Vanilla-sweet and oaked flavor, fruity, but on the malty side, with malt, grains and butterscotch. Medium body, and a weak, short, fruity and malty finish. A rather unusual beer, but I liked it. Could do without the butterscotch though, but there’s not enough of it to ruin the beer. (080305)

Bottle. Golden colour with a white head. Aroma is sour , dry, malt, butterscotch. Flavour is sour, dry, malt, caramel. A special beer.

Beautiful copperbrown beer with thin white head. Aroma is sweet but still there are lot of nuancees. Flavour is balanced: bitter and malts Almost light to drink and lot of quite much of carbonation. Oak Aged Beer medium beer: there is nothing annoying and nothing brilliant and I can’t find oak barrels even I know it.