Appearance: Deep
chestnut, slight haze, swiftly fading beige head (3/5).
Aroma: Smells like
freshly chipped wood, or yard work on an autumn day. Very earthy, wet, and musty. The smell of fresh mud keeps coming to
mind. As it neared room temperature, I
got cherries, prunes, and alcohol heat (3.75/5).
Taste: Prunes,
raisins, port, vanilla, and dried cigar tobacco. Tannic wood (3.25/5).
Mouthfeel:
Medium-to-full body with medium carbonation. Definite warmth from the alcohol (3.25/5)
Overall: I wonder if
this earthiness that I am taste is an intentional, or unintentional, spike of
Brettanomyces. There is definitely a
wild yeast chewing through some of this, but I honestly can’t tell if it’s
there on purpose or not. Overall it is
pretty nice, but lacks the smoothness and roundness of what I generally expect
of Old Stock Ale. My internet research
has not proven to me that there is a difference between the everyday Old Stock
and the one in this bottle, but I’m not in love with this “variant”. I picked this bottle up off a shelf a month
or so ago, so perhaps it has not been cellared properly (3.25/5).
-Matt
Update: I have contacted the brewery and they confirmed that the beer in this bottle was the same as Old Ale 2012. Nothing added or subtracted. So the irregularity I perceived was apparently not intentional.
Update: I have contacted the brewery and they confirmed that the beer in this bottle was the same as Old Ale 2012. Nothing added or subtracted. So the irregularity I perceived was apparently not intentional.
No comments:
Post a Comment