Highland Tasgall Ale

Brewed by Highland Brewing Company
Style: Scotch Ale
Asheville, North Carolina USA

Pours a deep, dark, cola colored body with a small, foamy tan head. The foam settles quickly to a thin film, leaving scattered microfilm sheets of lace behind. The aroma shows big time nougat, scorched caramel, smoked peat, and chocolate. Moderate piney hops show on a deep inhale, but this one seems to be all about the malts. Flavors are similar, and expertly blended. Smoked peat dominates. Burnt caramel, chocolate and nougat add depth and character, while resinous pine hops lend good balance. This one is delicious. Medium-full bodied and smooth as silk. This is as easy drinking a Scotch Ale as I’ve encountered to date, which is surprising for a fairly big beer. Really solid effort.

22. Thanks, BitBucket! Great stuff. Pours black with thick, rocky, bubbly tan head. Thick webs of lace. Nice sweet caramel, malt sugar, brown bread nose. Obviously this beer journeyed through many amber waves of grist before emerging to be bottled. Rich, creamy body with all that sugar, malt, caramel, toffee, bread, and general sweetness re-emerging for the mid-palate. Dense and complex and satisfying, with no harshness or rawness anywhere. Perfect Scotch Ale. Where’s my dark bread and stew? This is awesome!

Thanks to limesmut for the bottle. Deep mahogany color with a medium head. Aroma of smoked malts (no peat) and chocolate along with a fair amount of piney hops. Flavor was very smoky and chocolaty, and a little warm. It is definitely a different kind of Scotch. Very good beer.

Bomber, courtesy shigadeyo. Pours clear dark brown with a lacy tan head. A wee bit darker than I was expecting. Aroma of brown sugar, just a touch of chocolate, pine and fruit. Creamy medium body and moderate carbonation. Sweet taste of caramel, chocolate, figs, brown sugar. Dry pine and wood finish with a dash of smoke. This is pretty tasty stuff!

Soft mahogany brown, fairly thick, with a nice thick capping of lightly sandy browned foam about a finger high in girth. Stays lightly present on top with a milky skim and lots of sheeting lace sticks well across the glass. Aroma is a wee light for a wee heavy with some roasted malt, chocolate, dark fruit sweetness, and some dark brown sugar. It’s seemingly more like a big chocolatey porter for a nose. But what’s there is pleasant, just not in porportion to what it could be for Wee. Taste is much, much better however, again, closing in on a porter-like character with fairly big roasted malt flavors and lots of chocolate tones. Nice additional notes tend to sneak in with some brown sugar, darker caramel sugars, fudge, coffee, and a touch of dark fruityness of raisins and figs. There is only the smideonyiest of smidgeons to peat or smoke wrapped in the chocolate late in the finish. Flavors last for great length and make for a very nice tasting experience. Keeper of a finish, wow. It lays out a thick layer of the roast and chocolate for everything else to land on. The body is just above medium, nearly full, with lightly chewy acpects and heavy silken fudgeyness and chocolate silk pie creamyness. The roasted chocolate notes add nice feathery touches of both roasted chocolate bitterness and dryness to equal the delicate softness as it fades into the finish where it lasts and lasts and lasts with tone and flavor. A solid wee heavy, perhaps a bit more like a huge chocolate porter or stout, but damn good to drink none-the-less.! Yum!

Ruby red in color. Alot of caramel in this wiht a nice balanced roasted component.

650 ml. Clear dark brown-black with ruby highlights. Medium head lasts well, leaving some Swiss-cheese lace. Smoky wood and earth-spiced molasses aroma. Flavor is smoke, charred wood, espresso with cream, metallic-tinged molasses, maybe some cocoa. After half a glass, the smokiness fades and the bitter grassy finish becomes more noticeable. The higher hop rate balances the sweet chocolate-malt in the aftertaste very well. Palate is medium bodied, smooth and very well balanced between sweet and dry. This is Highland’s best brew.

MMMM, 22oz suprised by this one, pours very dark with a thin off white head, tastes like a sweet version of a scotch ale, toasted malt and very sweet on my lips, i thoroughly enjoyed this one.