J.W. Lees Harvest Ale (Lagavulin)

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

Interesting. Someone poured a little barley wine in with my scotch to cut it. Orange in color, perfectly clear, very faint head fades completely. Faint aroma of caramel is overwhelmed by the familiar scent of Lagavulin (a favorite Scotch of mine). The whiskey notes are marked by wood, iodine, salt, and seaweed. When cooler, the whiskey component completely overwhelms the rest of the beer. When this sipper eventually reaches room temperature, the caramel notes come through, wrapping sweetly around the ocean tinged peat flavors of the Scotch. Amazing how much of the character of Lagavulin carries through cleanly in this experiment. Long lingering flavor. As fascinating as this beer was, however, I didn’t like it as well as either the normal J.W. Lees Harvest Ale or normal Lagavulin. Though a balance was achieved between the distinct flavors, the two companions never seem entirely at ease with each other. I guess I’m partial to the flavors of bourbon when it comes to aging a beer in whiskey casks.

275ml. bottle brewed in 2003. Clear copper color with a thin white head. Aroma of peat smoked malt, whiskey and caramel. Smoky malt flavor with some whiskey, caramel and tobacco. Not my thing but well made.

03 bottle from LoweredSixth. Deep orange amber color with very little off-white head. Smoked aroma is intriguing. Flavor is a bit of a mishmash of smoke, sweet syrupy malt and sugar. A touch cloying. Decent.

2006 Vintage bottle.
Pours a dull ice tea brown with an aroma of caramelized molasses and raisin. The alcohol provides a sinus-clearing effect to allow the boquet to fully infiltrate the olfactory. Flavor is an exsquisite blend of hickory smoked BBQ sauce, peat, and caramelized sugar and molasses. Full, thick mouthfeel that doesn’t allow the sweetness to last very long; instead, it pushes it out of the way for the whisky and peat to settle in at the finish of the sip. Very interesting beer; I could probably drink more in the future.

2004 bottle, 10-29-07. Still, muddy amber. Very peaty aroma up front, woody, alcohol phenols, faint toffee. Toffee up front doesn’t stand a chance as the flavor is completely dominated by peat and wood. Dryness overpowers residuel sugars as well. Just not my gig.

Bright light orange with little head that quickly becomes a wispy film, leaving some lace. Pete really obvious in the aroma that dominates but doesn’t completely hide the spicy malt. The flavour is also dominated by pete which is in an interesting balance with the high alcohol taste and feel and the thick sweetness, though a lot of the pumpernickely malt is hidden by the smoke. The pete flavour also lingers on the tongue. A bit salty up front, full bodied, medium to low carbonation. The best of the cask aged series but still inferior to the regular Harvest (2001).

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.

12 oz. bottle. Pours rust orange with only the slightest off-white head and lots of floaties. I can already smell whisky as I start pouring it. Also in the aroma is caramel/raisin, vanilla/oak, some faint char, and fig. The flavor is sweet fig and caramel, vanilla, and raisin bread. The finish is oaky and sweet, and leaves a whisky-like aftertaste. Ok.