Heather Ales Alba

Brewed by Williams Brothers (Heather Ales)
Style: Traditional Ale
Alloa, Central, Scotland

Beautiful headless red amber pour. Aroma sweet, malty, slightly sick-tinged. Fudgy caramel with peardrop. Not a needle of spruce. Clean, sweet and caramelised. Lovely-tasting Belgian-like barley wine with a caramel apple/peardrop fruitiness and a lick of varnish. Disappointingly pleasant. What happened to the pine??

Pours a murky dark amber, with very minimal head. Aroma: lots of sweet things, none of them particularly enticing, alcohol, and something sour. I’m hoping I didn’t leave this one in the fridge too long......Taste: Not as bad as the aroma, or as bad as I was getting ready for. Weird to be honest, nutty malts upfront, followed by some strange woody flavour accompanied by what must be spruce, and a hint of pine. It has a slightly full mouth-feel which is decent. Not terrible, but I really can’t help but be mildly grossed out by certain elements. The aroma is honestly nauseating, and the better aspects get drowned out by the weird, somewhat unpleasant ones. Maybe I got an off bottle, or like I said, left it in the fridge too long, but seriously, this brew seems like it wouldn’t be so great even under the best conditions (IMHO). The last of my "Historic Ales of Scotland" pack, which was decent but not what I had hoped for.

Tasting notes from 2003 Harbury Beer Festival. Reddish-brown with light head. Malty aroma. Fairly sweet ale start to finish with notes of honey, carmel, and spices.

Bottle, pours hazy dark copper with a thin off-white head that quickly becomes a ring of foam. Sweet caramel aroma with berries, pine, earth. Medium body, a bit chewy, with light carbonation. The berries show up in the brown sugar-sweet taste, along with more pine. Dry woody and vaguely smoky exit. Interesting, and surprisingly tasty!

Pours a dark hazy orange with a short lived white head. A very intriguing aroma, very sweet and malty, with some notes of fieldberry jam, and a light note of pine forest. The flavour is sweet, malty, with some caramel, pine, and something else I can’t quite pin, finishes with a sweet aftertaste. The 7.5 alcohol gives it good body that ties the whole brew together. A top notch brew that is better appreciated out of a snifter. Interesting and unique.

sweet alcohol nose, cherries, dark brown color, tan/gray head, woody smoked raisin flavor, sweet alc finish, notes of cherries and tart fruit, not bad, a little thin n the palate

Cloudy body and head...alcohol dipped spicy caramel aroma...zingy flavor with a suggestion of citrus, and perhaps i’m sniffing a pine cone in the distance as all this is happening...In the woods I am, or in Grammy’s house with the pine cone decorations...even tempered palate, a pleasant liquid creation

Pours brown and quite fizzy but with little head formation. Aroma is sweet with some sour notes coming at the edges. Fruity. Flavor is a little thin but has some nice sweetness, caramel, and fruit notes of apples and plums. Carbonation has all but disappeared within minutes leaving the palate quite lacking.