Harviestoun Old Engine Oil Special Reserve

Brewed by Harviestoun
Style: Old Ale
Alva, Central, Scotland

330 mL bottle. Black with tan creamy head. Aroma of chocolate and over ripe fruit. Silky mouth feel. Pretty mellow taste of chocolate, plum, vanilla, and a slight smokiness toward the end with an alcoholic warmth in the finish. Not as much of the whiskey and oak taste as I look for in whiskey barrel aged beers, but the taste is surprisingly complex compared to the aroma. It’s worth a try, but nothing to rave about.

Bottle What a beauty ... dark and silent (like my wife like’s ’em), with a stoic and solid light brown head of rolling foam. The pounder of an aroma is smoky, chalky and almost like a Kansas City barbeque. The flavor is almost sweet at first, but the big underlying smokiness takes over quickly ... smoke, dark choclate, and then more smoke. This is a big, nice dark ol’ beer. Need more of these in January, by the fire, with a cigar ... not on a 95-degree July steamer in Virginia. (#2992, 6/26/2007)

11.2oz bottle. pours black with tan head. nose has wet grains, cereal, dull baker’s chocolate, meats, and dark fruits. flavor has over ripe dark fruits, baker’s chocolate, roast, meaty, and tar. alc. well hidden. body is a little syrupy. not much whiskey. flavor is pretty tasty but nothing special.

Black body with medium sized tan head. The aroma is vinous, milk chocolate, roast and coffee. The flavor is moderately sweet, lots of milk chocolate and coffee, some molases and a touch of dark fruits. Full body is sticky, but obviously filtered.

Get your money’s worth with the alcohol content. A little too sweet to compensate. Tasted at the 2007 Beer Festival in Edinburgh Scotland.

12oz bottle, courtesy of hopscotch. Thanks, Eric! Pours a pitch black core with next to no light at the edges; creamy, medium beige head with beautiful retention and lacing, leaving a layer of fine bubbles coating the glass. Generous, chocolate and toasty vanilla aroma, with chewy nougat and oak: sweet and engaging. Full, chewy mouthfeel: the sweetness is too much on this one: over-the-top nougat and vanilla notes, without enough dry chocolate or roasted / burnt qualities to keep it balanced; pleasant, warming feel from the whiskey barrel, which is nicely integrated into this beer; just a bit too much sweetness at the forefront, which the palate acclimatizes too after the first few sips; nicely done otherwise. This tastes more like a lightly barrel-aged porter than my understanding of an old ale (even a BA one). Lengthy, nougat and roasted malt and dry chocolate finish.

thanks to dsnowden for this gem! pour pitch black, really no surprise there, small light brown head that doesnt last long. Aroma is VERY roasty, lots of malt, and hickory smoke, and i’m getting a bit of soy sauce. FLavour is again, big on roasted malt, and a big smoky note in the finish, almost sausage like. A nice lingering bitterness in the finish also. SUper nice beer!

bottle. pours black and looks thick and viscous. no head at all and looks like very little carbonation as well.lots of nose here, notes of port vanilla, molasses etc. surprisingly lighter than anticipated. rich and malty but mostly a lot of port wine and other desert wine flavors.