The original whisky barrel aged beer

A new limited edition Ola Dubh has just been released from Harviestoun, aged in a 1991 Highland Park whisky cask. 20,000 bottles are available in various places around the country and also soon from the Harviestoun website. The plan is to release a single age-statement batch of Ola Dubh every year from now on, with the "core range" of 12, 16 and 18 to continue.

The 10.5% imperial porter is a full 2.5% stronger than its previous (not necessarily older!) siblings with a sweeter flavour due to the previous use of the barrels for sherry.  

"delicious smoky-sherry notes on the palate, the flavours deriving at least as much from the whisky-infused-wood as the spirit itself."  

The release comes 5 years after he initial launch of the Ola Dubh range, the first beer in the UK to be aged in whisky barrels from a named supplier and traceable to the batch. The original 40 and 30 y/o releases are currently the best in Scotland on rate beer and bested only by Old Chimneys Good King Henry Special Reserve in the whole of the UK.

I wrote about some of the previous releases for the inaugural international stout day in 2011 and if I find a bottle of this one I'll certainly get my thoughts up on here! 22 years old will put it between the 16 and 30 year old varieties; so I wonder how will that reflect in the taste. Let me know if you get to try this before I do! 

Fun Facts: 1991 was also the year the first website was launched, Terry Pratchett released his 11th Discworld novel Reaper man and Freddie Mercury died of AIDs. I turned 5 years old (unconnected to previous facts!) 

This release coincides with the 30th anniversary year of the inception of the brewery.  In that time its been through a number of changes, but the current head brewer Stuart Cail has been with them for the last 18 years. 

That's who those of us attending EBBC will be lucky enough to hear give a talk on whisky cask ageing, which along with the keynote speech by Garret Oliver will be one of my main highlights of the weekends. There may also be a sweetener in the deal, but you'll have to come along to find out what it is! 

Its not too late to sign up to EBBC (11th-13th July 2013); so head here and do so now. Its only £95 for the weekend, which may seem a lot, but given the average cost of a pint is somewhere north of £3 these days is only about 11pints worth, which you'll more than manage to recuperate over the weekend! On the same weekend is the second Edinburgh Independents Beer Fest and Annual CAMRA Scottish Real Ale Fest; so you'll be spoilt for choice. Hope tosee some of you there.

Edit: there's even more on that week than I'd realised, check out Rich's Blog, the Beercast for more details.

Harviestoun
@HarviestounBrew 
Facebook

Beer Blogger's Conference
#EBBC13
@beerbloggers
Facebook