Batemans Vintage Ale

Brewed by Batemans
Style: English Strong Ale
Skegness, England

Serve in English pint, Snifter

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Bottle from Aldi; clear copper pour with zero head, sweet alcohol aroma, very sweet taste caramel alcohol not much going on here. Great packaging but underwhelming taste.

Bottled, 500ml from Aldi, Banbury. Ruby chestnut with fast disappearing head. Big, sweet, wine like beer, there is a treacle like character to it then a raisin sweetness. The alcohol is prevalent throughout again fruity, wine, plums. Becomes plum puddingish towards the end. Full on but perhaps a touch flat.

A tad expensive at £3.20 from Aldi but worth it. Much akin to ’Black Russian’ by Black Sheep (same barley mixture) a great complex taste and a surprising amount of gas but a great brew.

500 ml bottle from Aldi. Served in a tulip, topped up every few sips. Poured reddish brown with an off white head. roasty cereal aroma. Fruity vanilla, oaky, mettalic, medicinal flavours that broaden and warm into rich, sticky, nutty dessert flavours. Drier finish than I expected. A nice Christmas experience

On cask @ Live and Let Live, King’s Lynn UK - Made a massive impression on me this one, a rich near black body, with a healthy white head. A barley heavy aroma with a liqueur style nose, backed up with notes of port wine, fruits and cereal in there. The body has a smooth syrupy feel, the taste has all the nose has to offer, and then the drink evaporated. Where did it go?

Battered boxed from Aldi. Clear red with a little head shrinking to nothing. Genuinely quite a beautiful aroma; cherry coke poured on some kind of stickly pecan and maple Bakewell lattice. That promise fades in the mouth into a fizzy marzipan slush with odd dank and furniture polish back notes. Then rum and vanilla, more cherry coke. It certainly isn’t bland which is an improvement on the majority of the portfolio. The oak has been kind but also cruel. Then again something about that dankness feels genuinely aged, as from a Fuller’s vintage from the last century. Not quite sure what to make of this; my nose and parts of my tongue say ’quality’, brain says ’sickly cherry custard bomb sprayed with Pledge’.

50cl bottle from Aldi, where this is an exclusive, bottle number 38286 of the 2012 Vintage. Well they say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, so I guess that Fuller’s are feeling pleased about this new rival.

A reddish copper pour with a ring of translucent cream head and some very light carbonation; the aroma has some light,slightly spicy malts; in the mouth, the malts are rich, light and buttery, with perhaps a touch of nuttiness; the finish has some port-like warmth, some oaky wood, and some plummy fruit, but is rather thin. Not bad, but this has someway to go to catch up with Fuller’s vintage offerings.

Bottle, from Aldi, Willerby. Deep chestnut brown, thin shortlived off white head and gentle condition. Pleasant but muted sweet malty nose with traces of earthy hop and some fruity notes, some aged woodiness develop as it warms. Full bodied in the mouth with a fruity malt sweetness well balanced by a solid earthy hop bitterness, nutty finish with some malt sweetness lingering along with a gentle bitter hop note.

Bottle. Dark brown, chestnut with a beige foam. Aromas are marzipan and bonfire with toffee and raisins with winter berries. Chocolate and weetabix with bready yeast and woody notes. Herbal and spicy with wine cask. Flavours are sweet plummy fruit with figs. Marzipan with raisins and doughy yeast. Smoky with base toffee and rye bread. Warming, peppery alcohol to finish. A nice winter warmer.