Allagash Musette

Bottle. Bright chestnut brown with medium sized cream colored head, fading to a thin layer. Fruity and fairly complex aroma with hints of tobacco and sour dried fruit. Flavor is malty and clean leading to a lingering sharp bitterness. As th ebeer warms small hints of butter reveals itself underscoring the maltiness. Alcohol is incredible well hidden. Soft, viscous mouth feel. A tasty beer, but I don’t pick up any oak aroma or flavor unfortunately which drags down the overall score.

Bottle. August 2006. Very delicate and muted nose: oak, spice, yeast, vanilla and malt. Pours a pretty ruby/amber with copper highlights. On the palate you get oak, vanilla, dry and sour yeast notes. Malted barley, caramel and some hops as well. Hides the 10% quite well. Creamy with lively carbonation. Complex and intriguing. The aroma could have been more upfront and not as muted.

Pours a slightly cloudy red/orange, and with a medium to large head. The aroma is of slight yeast, and a hint of wheat. It tastes of rich yeast with a slightly bitter onset. The lingering taste is of sweetened peat malts, and warm scotch. Uses quite a palate.

Pours amber with a nice sturdy head. Certainly aroma of earth and wood, with an undertone of cherry. The cherry follows into the flavor on the back, with a caramel Scotch character, combined with a very yeasty and bread like finish.

Draft at Capones. Hazy amber color with nice head which produced good lacing. Malty and sweet with caramel/roasted flavors. Semi dry finish. Good beer.

Fairly one-dimensional flavors of caramel, some smokey hints lie beneath. Hints of oak are evident but the well-balanced finish feels somewhat thin.

A thing of beauty. I like anything barrel-aged, but this is the first ale I’ve had that seems like it was designed just to be aged in oak. It pours the color of a cherry tea, with a thick head and lots of good lacing. The aroma and initial flavor is heavy on the oak, but then some notes of bitter cherry, orange peel, and plum enter the mix. Not overly complex, but it does have a faint ale funk throughout, and a nice, crisp, vaguely hoppy finish. This struck me as great for wine-type occasions.

Been sitting on this bottle for around a year now. Actually, I just noticed the label says May 2006. So, 1.25 years old, as recommended by ratebeerians. I never had this fresh ($15 is a lot to drop on an experiment), instead waiting for it to mellow out. Mellow it certainly is, but it is little else. Aroma has that signature Allagash oak -- which is wonderful -- and otherwise is kind of... pickle-y?... and yeasty. Gentle spices throughout. Flavor is murky and boring, and I struggle to find many descriptors at all... grape, perhaps, a touch of almond, molasses. Really just a total mess -- everything has blended together to create a worthless mix. I can see where people would think this would age right, and imagining the young beer, I’d probably have agreed, but aging has done nothing but ruined this. Drink yours now or forever hold your peace.