J.W. Lees Harvest Ale (Lagavulin)

Bottle. 2005 vintage. Pours rich, thick amber with brown and orange highlights. Virtually no head. Quite sweet on the nose (toffee/caramel), malt, oak and candied fruits. Thick, viscous and oily on the palate. Tongue coating. Very restrained attack flavor wise. Nicely balanced between sweet and oak. Hints of peat, oak, earth. More candied fruits, but not too overbearing. Finishes oily and sweet.

330. Pours a deep dark caramelly brown, nearly opaque, though speckled with some gold highlights here and there. Looks flat. Headless. Highly phenolic; it’s like they only got the medicinal side of that good Islay barrel wood. Sweet and sharp and tangy nose. Not sure how appealing this is. Loads of vanilla. Wow, there’s just reams of sugar in the mid-palate. Oily body, sticky, syrupy, almost a white sugar taste. Cough syrup like, in fact. The oak dances around in there, but none of the smoke or peat or brine of the whisky seems to be here at this point, despite the obvious presence of phenols.

12-oz bottle purchased from Coaltrain Wine and Liquor. Pours hazy and muddy mahagony with spare off-white head, completely diminishing with no lacing. Aroma is heavy malt (caramel, cookie), light hops (flowers), average yeast (raw leather) with notes of port, apple, pear and cola. Full bodied, creamy texture, average carbonation and a creamy finish. Heavy sweetness, light acidity and bitterness; creamy roasted caramel malt and whiskey flavor. A touch too sweet.

2004 vintage. Very sweet, unlike any beer I have ever tasted. Wanted to toss after my first sip, then let sit for awhile. Better at room temperature, but still not a fan of this barley wine. I love me a single malt, and a nice barley wine, just not together.

Poured a slightly cloudy dark copper color with a thin white head. Aroma is of sweet candy corn, caramel, mild whiskey notes. Thin palate for such a big beer. Taste is overwhelmingly sweet. I usually don’t knock a beer for being too sweet, but here it’s hard to ignore. Slight whiskey tastes in the finish, along with some heat from the alcohol. This is what people mean when they say cloying.

Pours a two finger cream head that fades quickly to a thin layer leaving a little lace. Cloudy amber color. Light carbonation and very heavy bodied. Raisin/rummy nose. Flavor is sweet rum with alcohol overtones sweet cough syrup finish, cloying. Pricey - $6.99 for a 275ml bottle from John’s Grocery Iowa City, Ia.

Nice pour: perfect head, little lacing. The color was like cloudy ice tea--too sweet on a hot southern day, it even got sweeter as it warmed. The taste was delic...an irish beer drinkin’ girl’s dream! Aged barrel flavor, whiskey taste interlocking honey with a sweet finish.

2004 sampled 2005: A bit more balanced than the port. Lots of caramel and brown sugar with the predictably high alcohol nose. Smokey from the first sip to the finish with a fair amounts of peat, scotch, wood, brown sugar, Very smooth mouth feel with a bit of alcohol burn.