Orkney Dark Island Reserve

Brewed by Orkney (Sinclair Breweries)
Style: Barley Wine
Stromness, Scotland

Serve in Snifter

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A deliciously black beer with fain head. Chocolate, smokey malt, and dark fruits. Powerful smoke body with faint chocolate and some oakiness. Very very nice.

Pours a dense powerful looking black, with hardly any head. Nose is dominated by chocolate, coffee, dark fruits, a smoky nuttiness, and a little of an almost dried meat salty touch. Very powerrful mouthfeel with the alcohol taking a strong stand as well as an abundance of chocolate, smoky port like flavors of raisin, caramel, and oak. There is also a light coffee like flavor in the mid-palate that accompanies the oak and alcohol. Very nice beer!

750 mL bottle. Dark pour with little head. Malty, coffee aroma with hints of fruit. Very thick, syrupy body. Nice smoky chocolate taste. A little bit creamy.

Swing top bottle shared with Nosiriwont. Pours a totally pitch black colour. Sweet strong roasty woody aroma with some smoke, dark fruits, slight vanilla, chocolate and alcohol. Thick sticky mouthfeel. Roasty, acid chocolate, oak, alco, dark fruity, sherry flavour. It totally killed the cheese I had with it.

Dark black color with hardly any head formation even with a fairly violent pour. Aroma has a lot of vanilla, chocolate, sweet raisins, and alcohol characters. Smoky character in the front followed by vanilla, caramel, and some oak becomes evident toward the end. A bit medicinal. Pretty nice but the alcohol is a lot more pronounced than I expected even for a 10% abv.

First bottle (swing top) off the receiving dock at SL, shared with Slob and others. Pour was brown to black, nice initial head, tannish in color. The aroma was sake-like, grainy, tapioca vanilla pudding, molasses, caramel, other darker (patent?) malt elements (licorice too). The flavor was similar, chocolate and berry notes emerging, slight acidic finish. Body was full and enjoyable, smooth, not really hot for the abv for sure. Another fun one for the evening, although that sake/grainy/ricey/vanilla type of medicinal aroma did hold this back a bit, a little strong and even cloying by the end of the experience.

Bottled 2006-03-20, 20 months old
Black color, no head, but with a oily appereance on the surface and a thin brownish ring of foam. The aroma is quite peculiar, with some roasted malt, oak, light Porto wine, very light vanilla. Medium to thin body strength, oily mouthfeel, with some flavor of roasted malt, light liquorice, light wood, some sourness from the roasted malt, molasses comes to my mind as well; with some oxidation it gets winy, more mellow, showing more liquorice. In the final there is some more roasted malt sourness and salty liquorice.
A strange brew, where the cask aging adds chaos rather than complexity.
Cheated by the style, I would not categorize it as Barley Wine (not enough sweetness, too much dark malts).

Got it at Brogatan, Malmö; at 260SEK (26€) for one bottle, it’s one of the worst quality-to-price beers that I remember

UPDATED: FEB 11, 2012 Medium dark brown head. Opaque black body. Syrupy roasty dried fruit aroma with spicy honeyish whisky notes. Mild and rounded. Dry-sweet, and faintly acidic, earthy chocolatey taste with roasty honeyish linoleum notes. Mid-bodied. Hot, soft, smooth mouthfeel. Dryish roasty chocolatey nutty aftertaste with resiny earthy linoleum, marzipan and whisky notes. Excellent! Amazing harmony and balance, and exceptional depth. A great beer. (0.75l bottle, wine monopoly. Rated an infected bottle at 3.2 in 2007, but have replaced that rating entirely here.)

Bottle from Magicdave, thanks! Lovely marriage of stout and whisky. A velvety beer, winous, full strength. Complex beer, for sipping late at night.

ISpicy and peaty aroma. Black color, light brown head, Vinous, roasty and oaky flavour - a wonderful beer! Now for sale in Denmark by www.skotsk-import.dk