Fish Tale Old Woody English Old Ale

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

Malt dominates the aroma..caramel is featured with notes of cocoa and a clean smelling wood aroma. Cloudy red/brown. Very barleywine looking with only a marginally more pronounced head than a barleywine would have. Malt, malt and malt with a suggestion of spice in the finish. Finish is very dry and nutty. I usually like a one dimensional malty beer, but here the result is less satisfying.

Thin head that reduces quickly. Low carboonation. Nice dense head reforms upon swirling. Rich sweet aroma with plenty of malts, caramel, Color is slightly murky dark mahagony brown. Flavor is very interesting. Harsh roasted grains up front that provides a little to much bitterness. Pretty sweet. Mellows out to a nice smokey malty flavor with some alcohol warming. Rich and meaty. Slightly dry and bitter. A little bit of dry bitter peanut skins. Finish is creamy and slick. A good brew and one that I think will improve considerably with age since this was pretty fresh. Thanks to Matta for this one.

2005 Reddish beer with a thin beige head. Nose has lots of hops and with dark candy sugar. Lots of grapefruit hop flavors with pear and plum fruitiness. Lasting bitterness on the tongue.

2002 vintage in 2005:

The Lure:
Bourbon-laced hallucinations surround the earthy raisins. Desirous figs and prunes complete the sweet and portly wine.

The Festivities:
Sensuous vinosity hugging the caramel malt. Berries roam freely just before the arrival of a dry and bitter finish. Tiny, spaced bubbling pulses within the somewhat thin body, and alcohol is thus able to protrude through. It gets less and less interesting as it goes, this one might have just gone over the hill.

Transcendence:
A grand forest setting seen from a postcard.

Cloudy amber pour with a thin light brown head. Dominant aroma of bourboun with malt and caramel. Flavor of bourbon, malt and caramel with a bitter finish. The body is light with soft carbonation.

Aroma:caramel and scotch.... Apperance:Hazy brown,good tan head... Flavor:Caramel,scotch,sour bitterness....

2003 750mL. Mostly lasting laced beige head covers the fully clouded brown body. Mature, developped bourbon nose accompanies the candied rooty, soily malts, mint and chocolate nuanced. Begins to show soft vegetal and red apple tartness, not quite annoying yet, but pointing toward a past peak. Otherwise brown sugar and pear flavors match the wood adequately, while notes of toothpaste, branches and licorice deepen the complexity. Light soft, yet active carbonation, medium bodied. Certainly woody, I’d be curious to try a younger one to see the differences, the slightly aged one I had (kept in excellent conditions for the time it was in my possession) led me to believe it had lost some grip.

Dark, crimson red, with a reddish-brown head a few specks of sediment here and there.
Bourbon sweetened with a little candi sugar, the vapors are strong and all over the place, lots of complex alcohols that both tickles your nostril hairs and slaps around you olfactive nerves.
Quite dry with some pronounced earthy, wood character. I usually don’t like it when it gets overboard and the malts are nowhere to be found, and all you get is a popsicle stick flavored vodka. Rest assured, the balanced is well respected in this case, the malt holds on just enough to give the hooch a run for it’s money.