Review 158: J.W. Lee's Harvest Ale Matured in Sherry Casks

Review 158

5/3/13

J.W. Lee’s Harvest Ale Matured in Sherry Casks: 11.5% abv

Background: J.W. Lee’s is an independent brewery owned by a family in Manchester. That is a pretty interesting point, because we haven’t reviewed a lot of authentic U.K. beers. They were founded in 1828, and now are on their sixth generation of family ownership. They also own a number of hotels as well.  This brewery tends to show off cask-aged ales, so that seems to be the focus. These guys produce quite a few beers, but as it tends to be in the European brewers, their beers tend to be very low percentage. This one, on the other hand, is not low at all, being at 11.5%. This is a Harvest Ale. This is actually considered a barleywine, which will explain why some of the flavors of malt come out more. This particular special release is aged in sherry barrels, which by itself is not very well seen in brewing today. We were very excited to see what this did to a beer.

Nose: Starting off as a fairly neat nose, one can relate the slight fruitiness of this beer to a Belgian style, but the uniqueness takes over from here. There are some notes of subtle raison, nuttiness, and slight malt. There are sweet notes of caramel and honey which front the nose, charging forward with ornaments of molasses following behind. If I had to guess, I would say this was aged in an Oloroso sherry barrel, although the size is hard to approximate. It adds a sort of obscure wine-like character to the beer. Not only does this beer look like apple cider, but you do get some notes of apple cider as well. The nuttiness, as the beer starts to open up, resembles toasted nuts; maybe not almonds per say, but none the less a toasted smell. We even started to sense some notes of dried oak, albeit not an aggressive smell, and a unique bit of plum as well, with even a hint of dark cherry.  

Arrival: The arrival, after smelling this beer for a few minutes, will knock you down. It has a sweet sherry and nuttiness at the beginning. There is some honey and maltiness in the arrival, but it is a pretty tightly packed, solid flavor. The arrival will start sweet at a slightly chilled temperature, and the sherry sweetness spills over into the body quite well. You will catch those apple cider notes in the arrival here as well. There is definitely some raison quality to this arrival. This might appear to be overly sweet when the beer reaches room temperature.

Body: To completely contradict the arrival, you will find interesting notes of peat and tobacco dominate the palate. It is not at all like the arrival, and leaves you a little astonished at what you just tasted. There are some burnt paper qualities to it. There is still some sweet raison to it, rich flavors of honey and the smoke becomes pretty powerful. This will calm down after the beer warms up though. The smoke flavors get pushed back to the finish as the beer transitions in temperature.

Finish: There is a little more peat in the finish than in the body, but you still get some prominent malt notes, along with the strong flavor of burnt tobacco. There is a strong amount of nuttiness to the beer, with the residual feelings of Oloroso and raisons. After the beer warms up to room temperature, the tobacco is right in the finish and kills the complexity.

Final Comments: This is probably one of the most complex beers we’ve ever had, with a dynamic influence from the temperature change. This has a great diversity, and the nose will tease you into thinking this would be simple and sweet, but it isn’t. This beer does model the sweetness of sherry, but takes on some prominent notes of other flavors as well, making this one of the most education beers we’ve ever had to drink.

Why you’d buy it: You don’t mind spending money, and want to try something completely different.

Why you wouldn’t: You are bitter and hateful and frown upon everything happy and good.

Score: 9.75/10

Review 119: Innis and Gunn Winter Beer 2012

Review 119

12/15/12

Innis and Gunn Winter Beer 2012: 7.4% abv

There is nothing better than a reunion. And we’ve had some good ones with Innis and Gunn. This is more like a high school reunion. A poor one. I recently had an Innis and Gunn Rum Cask, which is a fantastic Scotch Ale. This particular beer is a “porter”, but it doesn’t have that ominous black oil-like color that a porter normally does, so maybe the porter was...under-roasted? Despite this, it sounds like a pretty interesting beer, being an oak aged Scotch porter brewed with molasses, it is certainly unique. It is also a limited run beer, so we had to grab it. 

Well all of this self-hype was unnecessary, as the beer is not worth it’s cost if you’re looking for the same quality you got with the rum-cask Innis and Gunn. This isn’t against the company, but this just simply doesn’t do it. Here’s why: The nose gives off some good notes, shooting off raisons, caramel, vanilla, honey, milk chocolate, a slight sweet coffee flavor, cream, cantaloupe, molasses, and a moderate background tartness. This is the best part of the beer. 

The arrival is eventless, being sweet and light, with a slight lemon-lime character and some raisons. The taste contains raisons, coffee, slight hops, toffee, soda water/mineral water, and water in general. The body does contain a larger amount of wateriness, and there is more to be said about this later. The finish contains raisons, coffee, molasses, slight hops, toffee, earthy mineral notes, caramel, and an out of place tartness. So what’s the end result? 

KCM loves that beer makers can produce new ideas at a much faster rate than distillers, but this particular statement by Innis and Gunn is light, watery and inconsistent in flavors. The complexity isn’t there to speak of and there was a general disappointment in the lack of quality. Go grab a Rum Cask Innis and Gunn. It is still a fantastic brew.

Score: 6.25/10

Review 55: New Holland Oak Aged Hatter

Review 55

6/7/12

New Holland Oak Aged Hatter: 7.12% abv

With only a few days left until Hatter Day, we have another beer on the table, and this one is quite the interesting one. Another IPA, but aged in oak casks for that extra something. What is that extra something, and how does it affect this beer? We are here to tell you exactly that. New Holland will tell you Kentucky oak casks were used for aging this bugger, but it's not clear whether they mean new charred white oak casks, or used bourbon casks. 

Off of the tasting notes, we'll guess it had used bourbon in it. Speaking of which, here they are. On the nose, you can find caramel, vanilla, honey, lemon and orange, pineapple, malt, cream, with earthy and floral notes to boot. Not the most complex of Hatter noses, but sweeter and pleasant. The arrival in the taste is sweet and mellow, with apple, lemon, honey, malt, pine, slight pineapple, and vanilla all being introduced into the taste. There is a definite, but subtle sweetness to this beer that reflects the influence of bourbon oak aging and contradicts the IPA style, in a good way. 

The finish is medium-long, possessing notes of pineapple, pine, citrus, wheat, sugary sweetness and light spiciness. Overall, this beer is a good expression of a variation on IPAs, and we'd love to see more of this in the future. There was some discussion on how significant the influence of the oak was by the panel, and it could be possibly greater, but it still holds a unique character and is respected for that reason. Just don't expect a drastic transformation. 

Score: 8.5/10