Harpoon 100 Barrel Series #17 - English Style Old Ale

Formerly brewed at Harpoon Brewery
Style: Old Ale
Boston, Massachusetts USA

12 oz. bottle. Pours a clear coppery color with very little head & minimal lacing. Mouthfeel was warm and smooth. This brew has flavors of caramel and malt with hoppy bitterness for balance, especially in the finish. Knocked off a couple points for a strange medicine like taste in the finish.

Pours a clear copper color into the dimpled mug. A quick white head trailed off to leave a small ring of lacing. The scent was of dried fruits, griains, grass and malt. A very subtle hop presence comes through up front, then trails away with a griany, malty, dry finish. Very thin, without many hops to balance.

On tap Harpoon Brewery Windsor, Vermont. Brown Color. Malty Aroma. Malty Grassy taste with hoppy finish.

Bottle sampled on 6/30/07: Pours a transparent copper amber with a thin-lacing white head. Aroma of lightly sweet caramel and grainy malt with a hint of light fruit. Body starts fairly full and caramely sugary sweet with some lightly bitter earthy hops and mild warmth toward the finish. Fairly authentic and balanced, but could use some aging.

22oz bottle from 2006. Pours a fine deep amber, off to a good start with moderate head/lacing. Rich sweet malts in the aroma signal promise. But the brew is far too imbalanced to compete with the best examples of the style, in my opinion. Specifically, there’s an almost overpowering butterscotch flavor (and the cheap, ice cream topping butterscotch at that) that wallops you from the get go. It’s overly sweet in general, with no bitterness or balancing flavors I can detect. Too thin as well. I won’t be having this again.

Date: 02/10/2007
Mode: Bottle
Source: Brewfest, Extreme Beer

Appearance: clear amber, frothy off white head,
Aroma: sweet caramel malt aroma with earthy hops,
Flavor: flavor has lots of candy sweetness, lots of fruity character, a nice sipper,

Aroma: 7/10; Appearance: 6/10; Flavor: 7/10; Palate: 6/10; Overall: 15/20
Rating: 3.5/5.0
Drinkability: 8/10
Score: **4

22 oz bottle. Pours a clear orangish copper body under a small foamy beige head that retained as a patchy covering. Aroma is a mix of butterscotch and caramel with a light note of alcohol and minimal hops. Flavor is that same mix of butterscotch and caramel with some light toffee. Very sweet, with minimal bitterness emerging on the finish. Very hard to believe that this has 62 IBU’s. Mouthfeel is medium bodied, with lots of risidual sugars and some husky roughness on the finish. Moderate fizzy carbonation. Overall, way too sweet and lacking in any malt depth. Too simplistic.

Bomber drunk on 6/22/07
Dark chestnut with burgundy and dark beige tints. Clear, filtered with a dark beige head that is initially large, fading to half a finger, leaving no lace.
Some bittersweet coffee, anise, prunes perk up the nose, slowly smoothing out in to a breadiness and sweet caramel maltiness. Vanilla and caramel dominate from there, until it finally dries out on the finish through light alcohol and coffee. Medium strength of aroma, no flaws at least, but the complexity is stretched pretty thin across a simple caramel maltiness.
Even less complex in flavor, with tons of caramel sweetness, rather simple and tacky, obviously suffering from the filtration. Too much hardness grows on the palate, as well as breadiness and a light nuttiness that isnt really goin anywhere. Ends on a coffeecake and prune note, with light alcohol warmth giving a light liqueur-like note. Too sweet. Carbonation is low, texture is sugary but hard, not supple and malty. Neither my friend nor I finished our glass.