J.W. Lees Harvest Ale (Lagavulin)

Brewed by J.W. Lees
Style: Barley Wine
Middleton Junction, England

2004. Robe ambrée foncée très claire surmontée d’une mousse blanche mince. Arômes de caramel, de malt fumé, de whisky et de chêne. Saveurs de caramel, d’érable, de malt fumé, de whisky et de chêne. Houblon de soutien.

2004 edition. Pours a gorgeous red color with just a thin white head. Aroma reminds me of plums and cherries with a noticeable amount of whiskey in the background. Notes of vanilla in the aroma as well. Amazingly sweet flavor is a joy to partake in. More sweet fruit coats the mouth while the traces of whiskey really warm you up as it goes down. Sometimes I’m just baffled at how much people can hate on something this good.

Bottle sampled with Stegosaurus. Pours amber with a small tan head. Aroma of caramel, whiskey, citrus, and sweetness. Flavor is smooth, whiskey, caramel. Very nice, I prefer the Sherry version more.

Amber, thin head and lacing. Nose of strong peat, licorice, medicinal band-aid. The flavor is overwhelming with peat and sweetness and a horrible, horrible finish. I feel like I’ve used my tongue to comb through the medicine cabinet. Ugh. I like a good peaty scotch but this blended something funky together with it and it just didn’t jive.

I love scotch , scotch y scotch scotch, here it goes down, down into my belly, mm mm mmm. Strong smoky and peat aroma, with some medinical alcohol and bandaids, but all in a good way. This is perfectly what I expected it to be, although the flavors are a bit over the top, perhaps this one spent just a bit too long in the oak picking up all its nuances. Still quite tasty.

bottle. brewed 2004. smoky amber/brown pour with soapy looking tan head. excellent aroma. whisky barrel is the prominant aroma. fruit, floral, burnt malts, sugar. excellent. syrupy, caramel, sugar, the whisky barrel definately leaves its mark. almost like a dessert wine. enjoyable.

Caramel malt and spicy notes int he aroma along with hints of dark fruit. Caramel in color as well with a wispy white slick of a head. Fore is a foul chemical tasting bitterness followed by loads of tainted caramel malt and a big kick of chemically treated wood and whiskey. Flavor is so discordant I literally can not drink it.

Wow, this one doesn’t mess around does it? Pours like syrup...almost opaque amber with a short lived light tan tan that dissapates to a fine film. I certainly didn’t need to pour this one into a snifter to get the aroma, it is powerful indeed: strong sweet caramel malt, dark fruit, scotch and vanilla completely dominate. The flavor is very sweet(perhaps a bit too much)...a punch of caramelized sugar in the front with some scotch and dark fruit elements in the middle along with some maple and alcohol. This beer is thick, syrupy all the way back into the finish coating everything along the way, which would be great if it wasn’t so damn sweet...the finish lingers both a bit peaty and sugary. A very good sipper beer and one bottle could easily satisfy two people. Very well crafted despite one or two things and certainly something to try if you either like scotch or big heavy beers.