Fish Tale Anniversary Ale - 10²

Brewed by Fish Brewing Company/Leavenworth Beers
Style: American Strong Ale
Olympia, Washington USA

Courtesy of After4ever, thanks Tom. It is beautiful, hazy, red-brown with a small, creamy head. The aroma has notes of fruity hops, citrus, spruce, malt, caramel and raisin. The flavour has sweetness and notes of citrus (mostly the orange varieties), spruce, fruit, malt, caramel, raisin, light alcohol and a light bitterness in the finish. It is nice and harmonic.

Bottle, thanks to WeeHeavySD for sharing. Pours a lovely clear amber-red with a white ring that lingers. Aroma of malt, sugar, and hops. Hops comes through nicely in the taste, crisp and bitter, with sweeter malt and sugar notes. Lingering crispness. Nice.

Great aroma of hops masking the alcohol content. Very smooth with little carbonation.

Bomber bonus from someone, shared with dalekliz. Pours reddish brown with a tan head. Nose is sweet and rich and quite hoppy. Taste is sweet, well hopped and a nice tickle on my tongue. This can’t be 6 years old, this has rebottle the hops feel too fresh.

Bottle. Wow, is this really almost 6 years old?! The pour is a very cloudy caramel brown with glowing reddish highlights. Despite a careful pour, there is a stratosphere of floaties that cannot be avoided. A frothy, bubbly, khaki colored head leaves random micro-spots of lacing on the glass. Even at this age, the aroma shows massive citrus hop character, followed by big toffee and graham cracker notes. Woodsy oak and vanilla come through, adding a nice compliment. There’s a hint of butterscotch that I attribute to age, but not enough to warrant significant criticism. The flavor is basically like a west coast barleywine at this point, big grapefruit and orange blossom bitterness being accompanied by substantial, darkly toasted toffee malt sweetness and faint hints of dry cocoa. The oak imparts a strong vanilla component that works really well in this brew, but gets to be just a bit overbearing towards the end of the glass. Big bodied and lightly carbonated, the palate shows a semi-dry, strikingly bitter finish. I can’t imagine how hoppy this brew must have been when fresh. As it stands now, its still a tasty IIPA/barleywine hybrid that is probably just a bit past its peak. A pleasant surprise.

With all the talk about hops, I thought this would be more like an IIPA - but this pours dark - a deep copper, almost brown - and with tons of sediment! Dense, dissipating, off-white head. Smells more like a barley wine - lots of caramel malts offsetting slightly stale hops (to be expected at 6 years of age). A tad boozy, with some ripe fruit in the aroma. Overripe fruit and mild coffee ( ! ) are at the forefront of the flavor. Resiny, for sure - not quite enough sweet malt to fully counter it. Aftertaste simply bombards the back of your tongue - very, very bitter. Oak isn’t as pronounced as I wood [sic] have expected. This is good - powerful flavor... but the balance is off.

Cask @ Bailey’s Taproom... Poured a foggy amber/orange with a bubbly beige head. Freshly hopped aroma. Palate was soft and a little cloying. Before the hops were noticeable there was an initial alcohol character which was then subdued by some sweet, buttery malts. Finished hoppy but was really well balanced and not bitter at all.

This one was right in my wheelhouse - been looking for a good, massive sticky hop whale of a drink and this struck the right chord. Big-time caramel and molasses notes. Thick wood accents with some estery fruit components. Incredible hop lineup - moderate grapefruit with a medium dosing of pine and a slight resinous character.