More wood aging

Bristol Beer Factory have plenty of successful forays into barrel ageing under their belts with the 12 stouts of Christmas releases, but these two beers are the first of the core (pale and hoppy) beers to receive the wood treatment. I picked these two up at the excellent Barley Mow in Bristol last month.

West Coast Red was aged in Glenlivet barrels. Medium carbonation, plenty of fruity kiwi, touch of cardboard, tannins, spot of phenol but not much whisky...I’m guessing a lot of fresh blended in for balance, warming booze in finish. Dry, woody notes and some marzipan vanillin appear long after hops have faded. It doesn't have the same urgency as the original but enjoyable all the same.

Was at my dad's new flat
- no beer glasses

Southville Hop was allowed to get familiar with a white wine barrel.

Pours hazy dark amber with lacing of off white head. Vibrant mango and kiwi hops on the nose. Fairly high carbonation, pithy citrus, very dry finish, slight grape must. Bitter but fruity slightly oxidized. The edges on the usually zingy Southville Hop have been dulled, butthere is an extra layer of complexity underneath makingthisbeer for contemplation rather than quaffing. A partial success.

As blogged a month or so ago, Harviestoun are expanding their fantastic Ola Dubh range to dated releases and Ewan was kind enough to send me a bottle (plus a selection of other beers) to try. It looks very attractive in the bottle and would make a good present for the beer lover in your life. Its not just on the outside that it excels however, with the beer inside shining too. In fact its my favourite of the Ola Dubh's to date, and I've tried a few.

It pours dark brown-black and (unlike some barrel aged beers) is able to retain a handsome thick tan head. Fairly sweet nose of caramel, sherry, lactose, camp coffee, and on swirling some meaty umami and iodine thatcan onlyhave come from the whisky. 

Thick, mouth filling with gentle carbonation and sweet red berries up front followed by a cornucopia of flavour. Dry toasty malt, astringent wood, meaty booze sweet vanilla, coconut appears on nose, dark cocoa, latte, both sweet and savoury, iodine whisky, dry woody notes, rich caramel. The booze very well hidden but creeps up on you with a knock-out blow. Long rich dry finish.

Cuvee Delphine is a member of Struise breweries black Albert range. Aged in Four Roses Bourbon barrels it comes in ata hefty 13% Alcohol by Volume! I picked this one up at Bottleshop, Canterbury (mail order).

Pours dark brown with fluffy dark coffee tan head that starts off at a few inches then collapses to a more manageable few mm (yes mixed measurement systems...deal with it)
Slightly sour, tart red fruits, milk chocolate and coffee. extremely full bodied, sultanas, maltloaf, rich coffee, slight sourness, astringent coffee roast barley, gentle caress of whisky with more coffee building in the finish. Finishing quite dry with some balsamic fruit notes. Lovely and hides its strength magnificently.

Four very different beers, again highlighting that when done well and to enhance the beer rather than hide defects, barrel ageing can produce some fantastic results.

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.

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#StoutDay reviews Harviestoun Ola Dubh

I originally planned this blog post for Thursday night, but due to being ill decided to postpone it until this weekend. 

Scotland has had a dearth of breweries until recently and one of the new breed is the wonderful Harviestoun. I have not had a duff beer from them yet from the super session beer bitter and twisted to their cask conditioned lager Schiehallion, they tackle every style with aplomb. Whilst holidaying in Scotland last year I found a bottle of their porter old engine oil in the Scone (pronounced scoon) Palace gift shop. I'm a big fan of porter and it looked lonely on the shelf; so took it home and, of course, they aced that too. When I found out that they had aged the beer in a selection of Highland Park whisky barrels it was a no-brainer that I had to try them.

I picked up the bottles from Beer Ritz at various times over the last year, four in all and decided to try them all at the same time to see how the barrels affected the base beer. The whiskys of course taste different with age; so how would this impact on the beer?

 All 8% ABV the beers pour a similar dark brown-black with thin brown head. This is where the similarities end. The tasting notes for each are below:

12

Interesting aroma of pineapple, and Christmas cake...rasins, fruit cake and marzipan. Hint of smoke on the palate and a musty rusk dry chocolate finish. Gentle carbonation and an oily texture.
16
Red wine and coconut with treacle and black pepper flavours.Less noticeably alcoholic than the other expressions. Zingy carbonation.
18
Grassy, grainy rye nose with a hint of a maraschino cherry. Overwhelming whisky flavours and quite thin bodied.
40
Alcohol and nutmeg nose with plenty of booze and chocolate raisins in the taste. Gentle carbonation.

Its interesting to see such a wide palate of flavours across the four beers, though they all undoubtedly have spent time in whisky barrels with subtle vanilla and boozy whisky notes across all of them. The 12 y/o whisky is known for having peat smoke and that definitely ended up in the beer.  I certainly hope to get hold of a bottle of the 30 y/o too and I reckon I'd enjoy the whisky.

Another view of three of the Harviestoun beers can be watched below. Its the ineffable Zak Avery (The Beer Boy) of Beer Ritz.