Traquair House Ale

Brewed by Traquair
Style: English Strong Ale
Innerleithen, Borders, Scotland

Serve in English pint, Trappist glass

Bottle. Meh... not sure what all the hype is about. Nice nose of sweet malt a d candied dark fruit. Pours a rich, oily brown with minimal head. Quite dry flavor with some salt, dark fruit and molasses. medium bodied with average carbonation. Decent but far from spectacular.

Lovely almost-black yet transparent. Somewhat thin but lovely and lacy head. Smoky, salty sausage and caramel aroma. Salty flavour of malt and sausage but not much smoke. Very nice touch of hops in the end.

The color was dark amber with some sediment. The head was creamy, thick, light beige with some lacing. The aroma was musky, sour, and dry. The flavor was dark fruit, musky, and dry. The palate was smooth. The finish was a little more abrupt than I would have liked.

Dark brown color with a weird color medium head (sort of a brownish/green). Aroma is sweet, malty with a strong bourbon oak property. Flavor is quite sweet and smooth, the oak being a little more restrained than I expected from the aroma. Notes of currants/raisins, whiskey, licorice, and sweet dark fruit. Body is a little syrupy but smooth, Finish is also quite smooth.

Bottle. Having tasted the Lairds liquor I had big expectations. They weren´t met. Dark brown with little head. Aroma certainly isn´t port as mentioned in the earlier ratings but whiskey and tar, and that is a real turn off. Still a little point for aroma, mainly because, theres a lot of it. 1.5 hour later the bad notes have disappeared leaving mainly roasted malts. I raised my aroma rating with 0.1 Taste dominated by roasted malts and smoke also quite salt. In the beginning there were some strange bad tasting notes. They disappeared after a while, and I gave 0.1 more to flavour. Overall I raised my caracters with 0.3 which meant from initially 1.8 to 2.3, still wasn´t very impressed. And call it whatever you want, but there is no notes at all of portwine.

Murky ruby red/brown with a thick creamy light light tan head. The aroma is musty, mellow, aged/basement aroma, portish, alcohol. The flavor is very mellowed dark fruit, slight alcohol, caramel, also a tad musty. The palate is mild, mellowed, with a slight alcohol warmth.

Nearly black beer with some fine laces. The aroma is of aged port or madeira with hints of wood, alcohol and roasted malt. The port goes again in the taste, but malt, dried fruits, roasted grains and cinnamon makes it entry here. Nice bitter end. A very nice beer with complexity and many layers to be explored.

11.2 oz bottle. Pours dark brown with a small head, which slowly dissipates. Fruit with a backbone of oak for the aroma. Same flavor with a malty presence and figs. Light mouthfeel finish and dry. Slight metallic taste late in the end which was dissapointing.