Heather Ales Ebulum

Bottled. Black with aroma from licorice and tar. A bit too sweet with tar-flavour.

Bottled: Brown/black coloured. Brown medium sized head. Lasting. Is fruity and malt with clear notes of elderberries. Has a good malt charachter. Is quite well balanced and ends up malty and light spiced.

Faint, winey aroma with some chocolate notes. Dark, ruby red to jet black pour with a dark eggnog colored head - good lacing. Flavor has hints of cherries, (could be elderberries - not familiar with them) faint chocolate with a distinct wine-like aftertaste. Best of these Scottish Traditional ales to date.

This beer is one of my big surprises for 2004. Pours mahogany with a big tan head. Big aroma of malt, huge prune, berries, concord grapes, nuts, and oatmeal. Tastes malty, with elderberries, figs, malt, nuts. The mouthfeel is very dry, but great, with a nitrogenated aspect to it. There are wine snobs out there that would gladly pay 100 bucks a bottle for wine that tastes like this. It is very dry, but with huge berry flavor, and a great aroma, with multi-faceted complexity and good balance. Wonderful.

Having no I idea what an elderberry tastes like, I must admit that I am at something of a disadvantage at pointing out how the addition of them affects this beer. That being said, this pours a very dark, almost black brown. A white frothy ring of head forms along the circumference of my glass. The nose is fruity and slightly tart. The palate is somewhat watery, flat and altogether boring. Though I would imagine that back whenever this kind of beer was common it would also be common for beer to be flat, I’m drinking it today not hundreds of years ago and I like a nicely carbonated brew. The flavor is hardly what I’d call assertive but pleasant none the less--semi-sweet with fruity hints balanced by a bit of roasty but slightly medicinal bitterness and a bit of alcohol (strangely, since normally 6.5% wouldn’t be enough for me to notice). I’d really like to get my grubby mitts on a well kept cask version as I’d imagine that would clear up the palate problems I mentioned earlier.

Pours solid black with almost no head or lacing. Nose has strong hints of coffee and malt. Very thick and oily mouthfeel, but finishes light and refreshing. Tastes like a smokey stout with a nice complex blemd of other flavors on top of it. Pretty rich and filling. Would try again.

Bought in the 330ml brown bottle. Poured into my glass this is a very dark, thick looking ale..some purplish tinges show through when held close to a bright light, small tan head. the aroma as befits a Scottish beer is very malty..milky somewhat some ":curranty" aroma shows through. The flavour again is very malt dominated at first,,then I begin to get hints of wine, red wine like it says on the label..a little peaty too..also i detect an oatmeal stout like flavour somewere in the background. Itsgood on the palte though I thought it a little "thin". Nice sipper of a beer, quite complex..not a session ale by anymeans.

Adequately described as a black ale, this beer has a foamy brownish head. The nose has leafy vegetal and berry aromas enveloped in dark chocolate malt. The palate is creamy with some notes of cocoa and subdued fruit. Toward the finish, the vegetal notes reemerge creating a lasting taste of maple and berries.