AleSmith Wee Heavy Scotch Ale

Brewed by AleSmith Brewing Company
Style: Scotch Ale
San Diego, California USA

Champagne bottle. Pours dark brown color with a small tan colored head and lots of floaties. Whoaaa aroma is incredibly malty and sweet, lots of caramel, toffee, chocolate, and honey. Chocolate and dark fruits dominate the flavor, nice alcohol warmth that you’ll feel deep in your chest. As said, chewy mouthfeel. Freakin amazing.

(bottle, thanks Bartzilla!) Pours dark brown with an off-white head that retains nicely. Aroma is initially really fruity, with some dried fruits and cherry (like red vines licorice). Upon warming there’s more malty aromas of chocolate, caramel, and further warming yields the smell of fresh baked brownies. Agitation also reveals some toasted nut aroma as well along with vanilla. None of these smells really dominate over the other, but they all blend together nicely. The flavor is very sweet and malty, with prominent flavors of chocolate and caramel, but there’s also a light fruitiness and hop bitterness that lurks around in the finish. A hint of smoke is also evident as well. Mouthfeel is medium. This is a really solid beer, that doesn’t have a stand out flavor or aroma, but everything just blends together perfectly. This is definitely one of the best scotch ales I’ve had.

Pours a dark bourbon color with little head, and little lacing. Smells of sugary malts, and a marginal hop spice. Tastes of smoky anise, protuberant dark fruits, bready oats, and some of the most pungent caramel malts I’ve tasted. A whit of bitter molasses also seems to annex the finish, along with a wisp of alcohol/merlot dryness. Very rich body, and with smooth figure.

Oh wow! 750mL into snifter. Bottle received in trade 16 months ago. I normally find scotch ales and their associated characteristics to be overpowering or unbalanced, but not at all in this wonderful creation. The balance is flawless. Aroma is of dark fruits, some slightly smoked wood, molasses, and caramel. The mouthfeel is quite nice, with good carbonation level, no cloying tendency, yet a slightly oily film coats my palate following each voluptuous encounter. The flavor is even bolder and richer than the aroma, with rich velvety chocolate joining the party. Intriguing caramelization and molasses backs up the rich chocolate melding seamlessly with the light smoke and wood flavors. The perfect level of assertiveness in the warming sensation pleasantly guides the finish, emboldening the rich chocolate, dark fruits, and smoky wooded overtones. This beast dries out in the finish much more than I would have assumed, which brings us from overwhelmingly, decadent liquor back into the realm of sweet quaffable goodness. Raisins, currants, and chocolate linger from start to finish of the finish. The smoked woody peat comes back in the tail end of the finish to tease the nostrils briefly before retreating into the depths.

This brew really brought my taste for scotch right into the flavor. Lots of scotch accents with a smokiness to the finish and heavy malty start that set this flavor apart, hints of chocolate and caramel within the layers of malt. Pours a deep red with a light tan head that leaves heavy lacing on the glass. Malty aroma with hints of dark fruit, caramel, and a scotch and smoke nose to it. Mouthfeel was rich and thick with a nice hop bittered balance that didn’t get in the way of the scotch flavors. Now if only i can get another bottle of this to age for a while, hmmm....

750ml capped and foiled from kegbear. Deep dark brown with maybe the best looking tan head of any Scotch ale I have ever had. Starts out big with tight uniform bubbles and settles down to a thin layer and will reform easily with a little swirl of my glass. Malt, peat, fleshy plum, cola. Tight sharp carbonation on the tongue with thick but proper body and oily feel. Prickly up front with bready malt that quickly moved into peat then sweet plum, dates and cola finishing up with more peat, tobacco and leather. If I have to knock it for anything, it would be that the alcohol is a bit sharp. Thanks Craig!

Sick, sick, sick beer. This beer looks like something they were drinking a thousand years ago. Ruddy brown, orange, red mixture with a soft white, tingly head clinging on down the glass. Smell is of sugary whisky, vanilla extract, toffe and chocolate liquor. Smell this thing while warm and wipe yourself clean afterwards. Flavor is floral and alcohol with sugars coming through in a way that reminds me a lot of a mead. The taste is like a roasty mead and whisky mix with the hops and yeast adding only with the spice, no bitter or citrus coming through. This guy is like alcoholic french toast. Awesome. Thank You Alesmith. From our boys at Julio’s in Mass. 2009 22oz.

Bottle at Holiday Alesmith tasting. Soda brown color with very little head. Fresh tobacco scent. Taste is sweet and alcohol at the first. Caramel. Late bitter finish. Coffee leftovers. Rerate moving up from 4 to... Two year old bottle properly stored. Less tobacco scent. Still there, just not as prominent. Sweet funkiness starting to show on the nose. Bright sharp frutiness, almost cranberry. Vanilla. Dark brown with rust highlights. Resilent ring and lace. Taste is caramel and light fruit. Light flavor of dark fruit is part of it. Raisins, but also lighter fruit flavor. Bitter malt finish, and even a bit of hoppiness after two years. Gooey in the back of the throat. Wonderful. Wish I had 3 more in the cellar. I’m resisting going higher than 4.3, as II’m trying to not inflate. Nose is close to 9, as is flavor.