Lost Abbey The Angels Share

Huge thanks to MikeTD for flying to Cali for (this bottle) family. Dark burgundy pour, very tiny beige head. Aroma is boozy, lots of oak, vanilla. Flavor is mellow bourbon, chocolate, vanilla, oak, and a touch of roastiness. Belgian style yeast that would be in say a quad. A touch of raisens, caramel and a hint of coffee as it warms. More roastiness as it warms with the booze really mellowing out. Cloying mouthfeel but thin carbonation.

Rating #200. Pours a deep brown with almost no head. Nose is complex with dried fruit, an earthy influence, and sugary sweetness. Flavor is sharp and complex, strong of alcohol, along with multiple sugars, malts, and some burn. A really unique experience, and a truly dark, lively, strong beer.

Has a nice aroma of oak, malt and vanilla. Has a great appearance, dark like a stout. Tastes great, nice and complex, very malty with oak overtones, a classic.

750 ml bottle poured a nearly opaque brown with a small lingering tan head. Aromas of bourbon, oak, carmel, dark fruit, light spice and a hint of tobacco. Palate was light to medium bodied and smooth. Flavors of chocolate, figs, bourbon, oak, toffee, light molasses and a hint of spice with a smooth warming lingering oak finish.

Repeal Day. Time to pull out all stops. I don’t have a Port or Lost Abbey glass so my Westvleteren chalice will have to suffice. A: Dark brown ruby colored body. It almost looks like a very dark red wine sitting in the glass. Barely enough light passes through to be able to see yeast particles in suspension but I can just make them out. There was initially a small light mocha colored head but it fell soon after pouring leaving only a rim on the edge and a small patch in the center. Fairly typical of a barrel aged beer in my experience. By swirling the glass it seems that the beer is pretty thin but I know better than to judge a book by it’s cover. There is almost no visible carbonation. S: As soon as I popped the cork I could smell brandy. Smelling the beer itself is a magnification of the cork. Brandy, sweet caramel, toffee, vanilla, and dark fruits emanate from the glass. I have never smelled caramel so clearly before in a beer and it smells damn good. Overall, it may be a bit on the sweet end but if so, only by the slimmest of margins. T: The brandy is very up front but not overpowering. Broken down, I get some caramel, dark chocolate, oak, and a great malt backbone. The caramel is as strong in the flavor as it was in the aroma. The chocolate appears later in the taste joined by a hint of dark fruit and they linger on the tongue, lasting nicely into the aftertaste. There is a slight bitterness in the middle that appears only for an instant before fading into the dark chocolate. As it warms, the flavors become enhanced and richer without becoming too much. If I didn’t know this was 11% ABV, I could call you a liar if you told me so. I can’t detect any alcoholic burn at all. The smoothness of this beer is out of this world. M: The body is actually much thinner than I expected, but there is so much flavor packed in there it doesn’t even matter. As I mentioned, the smoothness is amazing. It tastes like this should be a sipping beer, but I ended up finishing the first glass rather quickly. D: There was a decent amount of hype surrounding this beer as there is surrounding Dark Lord. When I finally tried Dark Lord for the first time, I was a bit disappointed. Tasting The Angel’s Share for the first time was the exact opposite. This beer is as good as, if not better than the hype as far as I’m concerned. The ease of drinking for a beer of this ABV is incredible and the flavor profile is outstanding. This really is a world class beer.

Bottle (750ml). At BeerBistro - shared with blankboy. Batch 1. Rating #2700. Poured murky dark reddish-brown, with a smallish mottled tan creamy/bubbly head. The aroma is wonderful - smooth and complex and certainly no complaints at all, apart from it being a tad too restrained - I got, variously, well-rounded funky yeast, smooth, lightly chocolatey caramel malt, soft, rich spice, with raisins and citrus zest, and an overall blanketing of downy-soft oak/vanilla tannins. The taste - wow. Just wow. Barleywine is now done for me, I don’t expect to taste better, ever - smooth, roast caramel malt, quite sweet with dusty rosehip highlights and mocha, the alcohol reminded me of armanac, and there is even a whisper of floral hops lingering in there, as well as raisins and ... look, it’s just F’in good, okay? thick, soft, lightly sugary mouthfeel, a joy on the palate - nice sludge at the bottom too (yumm), and it got increasingly warming - drink this with a friend, but not hot, not boozy. Splended, sophisticated, wonderful - I don’t know how long this was cellared, but with THIS age on it, this is an amazing experience - I described it after the fact as "like being beaten to death with a solid gold bar wrapped in chinchilla."

Bottle shared at the Beer Bistro in Toronto. Gotta splurge sometimes! Dark murky beer with minimal head. Nose is off dark chocolates and fruit- not what I expected for a barleywine! Taste- sublime- the brandy aging has turned this into a very unique beer. Hops are subdued, so really not that much bitterness. Just silky thick tootsie roll, plums and raisins, and vanilla sweetness (to name a few). Almost seems like more Belgian Quad than barleywine. Great sipping beer, but still dangerously drinkable. No hotness to speak of, just pure heaven.

750ml bottle, batch 1, cellar aged 1 year, BLIND!! Part of "Drewbeerme is crazy mofo for having me rate this blind" tasting. Dark brown, opaque color and small to medium beige head. Sour chocolate aroma with old fruit and al very slight (after finding out what this beer was, I can attribute a lot of what I was smelling to the aging process, including vanilla and alc). Nice flavor of sour roast, bitter fruit, boozy, chocolate, (once again a lot of what I was getting could have been from the barrel-aging, especially some of the char/dark malt taste and alc). Body is a little thin for all of the flavors that are going on, but none the less very creamy, though I could live without the burn. Overall a very nice beer, and I dig the age flavors that were already coming out at a year, I would love to try it again after a few years (hint hint nudge nudge Andrew). Also I think I would have rated it higher if I had known what it was from the beginning.