Eel River Triple Exultation

Brewed by Eel River Brewing Company
Style: Old Ale
Fortuna, California USA

Thanks Scott M. Poured dark reddish brown, malty, herbal hops, caramel, slight dried cherries.

Bottle compliments of DuffmanSW also shared with mspindler. Pours a beautiful mahogany color with a nice tan head. Sweet caramel and hop aroma. Taste is very sweet with some oxidation. Reminds me of a barley wine. Good carbonation. This is the best organic beer I’ve had.

Bomber. Pours brownish amber with small off-white head. Aroma is boozy with toffee, brown sugar, sweet and caramel malts. Flavor is toffee, dark fruits, caramel, brown sugar with nice malty balance and a nice amount of booze in the finish. Smooth mouthfeel with average carbonation for the style. Decent old ale but nothing close to Kuhnhenn 4th.

Looks nice. Not too much in the aroma. This is pretty decent. A hint of coffee, not much alcohol, not as thick as I’d thought it would be.

500ml bomber. Opaque dark toffee brown with a thin off-white head. Quite a rugged, though true to style, aroma of deep alcohol laced caramel. The mouthfeel is surprisingly light and smooth compared to the aroma, almost medium bodied in some ways. The warm brown sugar finish reinforces the fact that this beer is no joke though. Figgy, with some dark fruit pungency. Some bitterness from the hops helps to balance it all out, but they are still trumped out by the thick malt bill. An excellent example of a quirky style.

Tap. Dark red brown color. Think head. Not much nose but slightly grapey. Exceptionally smooth taste for the 9.7 ABV. Mild sweetness, almost fully balanced with bittering hops.

22oz. A disappointing take on the style. The nose is hardly a nose. Some light malt, maybe a bit of caramel. Flavor is similarly and oddly light. Some light caramel and sweet malt almost like licking malt extract. No hops, no funk. An old ale should be a little funky with some fruitiness. This has none of this. We all agreed that our homebrewed Smoked Old Ale kicked this ass of this. A poor effort but at least still drinkable.

Pours deep mahogany into a snifter. Off-white head recedes to hug rim. Dark caramel and grapefruit aromas. Thin and well-balanced with upfront dark caramel and a lasting sweet resin finish.