Heather Ales Alba

Cask at Bierra Paradiso. Clear dark rusty orange color. Moderately heavy honey and mapel malt nose, with just a faint bit of grassy, spicy, oily hops. Wet, low carbonation as expected, but a bit too oily and slick for my liking... makes me think of kelp with the slimy texture and slightly vegetal, twangy flavor. Earthy, peaty, spruce and pine spices along with some dull orange-flavored hops in the finish. Weird beer.

Bottle. Pours hazy orange salmon, thin white head that disappears. Aroma is pine, oak, acetone, malt, anise, molasses, alcohol. Flavor is acetone, dried fruit, cotton candy, alcohol. The nail polish (acetone) aroma and flavor really kill it for me.

330 ml bottle from a historic ales of scotland giftpack. poured brown with almost no head and average carbonation. sweet pine and berry aromas with some maltiness. flavours are quite nice. interesting and complex although a bit to thin. enjoyable and something id have again.

What a wonderful beer. A ’sipper’ (as the Americans say. What a terrible word!); very strong, a delight to taste, but hard to find in England without the American gift pack. I would certainly recommend this to all good fellows.

Bottled. Cloudy ruby-copper in appearance, with no head but a lot of bubbles. Scent is quite malty with lots of berry fruit, particularly raspberry and strawberry. Very carbonated but with a smooth, syrupy mouthfeel. Quite bitter, some sweetness and a dry end. At the front, I was mainly getting strawberry jam, and some grapes, almost wine-like, at the back. There was some pine present, but I really wouldn’t have noticed it if it wasn’t on the label. Nevertheless, very unusual, and nice.

Bottle. Glowing orange/red appearance a definite highlight. Aroma is decidedly sweet, with layers of honey, cherry, taffy and berry-fruit-scented candle. Sharp and strongly bitter alcohol body stings like a right-uppercut, with minor malt creaminess doing little to soften the blow. Bitter-focussed flavour is difficult to describe as the bittering agent is so unusual but this brew seems to have a sharper, more obnoxious bitterness than the traditional hops profile. Needless to say, it’s quite apparent why hops is King. Heavy alcohol effect also offers an OE-like malt liquor experience. Worth trying…once.

THOUGHTS: Had a skunked bottle of this about a year ago so I never rated it. But this one was fresh and was an incredible beer. Almost like a liquor. Slightly warming too. Would definitely have this one again. Not as piney as I would have thought. TECHNICAL: Bottle. Poured a clear, medium to dark amber with a small, slightly off-white head that mostly diminished and left fair lacing. The aroma was heavy caramel malt, toffee, honey brown sugar, maple syrup, raisin, apple, wine and maybe some spruce. The initial flavor was moderately sweet and lightly bitter, while the finish was heavily sweet and lightly bitter with an average duration. The flavor was mostly the same as the aroma. It was a little like a thiner Samichlaus. The medium body was syrupy but slightly watery with fizzy carbonation and a lightly astringent finish.

Beautiful headless red amber pour. Aroma sweet, malty, slightly sick-tinged. Fudgy caramel with peardrop. Not a needle of spruce. Clean, sweet and caramelised. Lovely-tasting Belgian-like barley wine with a caramel apple/peardrop fruitiness and a lick of varnish. Disappointingly pleasant. What happened to the pine??