Elgoods Wenceslas

Brewed by Elgoods
Style: Barley Wine
Wisbech, England

Serve in Snifter

send corrections   |   shelftag   |   edit barcodes   |   add pic

Very nice winterbeer. Drank it from keg as beer of the month from the ABT. Warming mouthfeel, a good combination between fruityness and malts. A very hopbitter aftertaste. By the pint please.

Gravicask (Cambridge Winter Ale Festival 2011)
Fruity hop aroma, but with a little acidity. Mid to dull orange. Slightly winey taste. Alcohol can’t be tasted, but can be felt. There’s a little acitity to the aftertaste too. Presume this isn’t at its best.

Cask, gravity at St Neots BF ’09 (’Booze on the Ouse’). Odd to find this Christmas beer at the end of March. Bright amber with a sweet, fruity rather alcoholic aroma. Sweet taste, pungently alcoholic, with a strong, sharp bitter finish. The beer does what it says, even on a warm spring day in sunny Huntingdonshire.

(half pint at Fat Cat, Norwich) Dark brown colour with a tiny head Aroma was of strong alcohol, malt and fruit. There were toffee notes, and winter fruits too, but it was a little sickly. Not overly bitter. Defintately warming, the alcohol shows, but not bad. Not great though.

Cambridge Fest. Strong pale ale / barley wine with a hefty hop dose. Strong, old fashioned beer. Damn nice though.

Cask gravity at White Cliffs BF 2007. Chestnut colour with thin beige ehad. Some peppery hop on aroma. Pretty good strong malt in mouth. Plenty of flavour. Peppery hop finish. Some choc as well in mouth.

A dark, reddish-brown coloured beer with a weak off-white head. A weak, vinous aroma, some fruit with a hint of spice. The taste is thick, and a bit cloying. slightly sour, fruity with a touch of warming spice that is underpinned by a heavy alcohol presence. The finish is thick and sweet. Cask - The Ouse Amateur Sailing Club, King’s Lynn, Norfolk)

Hand pulled at the Wellington, Birmingham. Warming rosehip style flavour. Ruddy beer. Balanced fireside flavours. A hint of Port and some unsurprising strength.

Cask (gravity), Cambridge Beer Festival, May 2005. You may think May is an unusual time to be drinking a Christmas ale and you’d be right. But this isn’t your average Christmas beer - its been aged in cask since then. And it shows. There is bags of plenty of dried fruit and Christmas pudding. But there’s a woody edge which becomes much more pronounced on the palate. Tastes rather musty and dried out, with a vinous edge. There are vestiges of a warming richness but it’s has ebbed away with age. So it comes over more like an old ale than a barley wine. Interesting but I don’t really think the ageing has done it any favours. I’d like to try it fresh to get a comparison.

Cask conditioned at the 32nd Cambridge Beer Festival, gravity dispense. Simply called "Elgood’s Winter Warmer" at the festival, and the ABV was listed as 7.2%, not 7.5%, but I take it that this must be the same beer? No other winter warmer is mentioned at the brewery website. The brewery had kept a cask of this winter seasonal for the festival in May. Brown to mahogany colour, minimal carbonation, no head. Caramel, leather and dark fruits in the aroma. Warming mouthfeel, sweet but not cloying. Spices, dark fruits and treacle in the flavour. Hoppy finish. Not bad.

UPDATED: JAN 12, 2011 Cask conditioned - gravity dispense - Cambridge BF. An amber coloured beer with a fruity but a touch stale aroma. The taste is warming and malty sweet. It is quite powerful but only an acceptable barley wine. Score 3.4
Subsequent rating scored 4.0. Average becomes 3.7