Heather Ales Fraoch (Bottle)

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

Re-rate:strange, this is nothing how i remember it. I previously gave it 3.8, but i had i on cask at the Kent Beer Festival, and it tasted like a completly different beer, thin and flowery, with a very strange flavour (can't pick it) which i guess is from the heather, strange.

orange colour, fine head, nice lace, herbal with light smokey notes, medium-bodied, quite neutral flavour, smooth, dry and slightly spicy finish

Hazy deep golden body with a very small white head. Flowery and herbal dry aroma. herbal and spicy flavor with a honey sweetness. Finish is dry with an alcohol touch.

Orange-amber beer with an olive shine; small off-white head. Imagine the smells of (natural) resin, pine and honey, and some wood. Mix it into a low-shrub. That’s heather - or Fraoch . Immensely original. My wife says cider. I find malt cookies, bitter pine resin, Retsina, some exotic after-shave. I’d like to acknowledgd heather, but to be honest, ’t is many a year since I smelt the moor, and even then, I hardly ever chewed the plant. Looked a wee bit tough for my lowlander teeth. Light body, but a slightly viscous texture, which points again to the resin. Refreshing thanks to a little tartness. Thé overwhelming importance is how Bruce Williams (immensely likeable guy) made a hit from this recipe, torn from times immemorial. This and his other ideosyncratic beers might signify the real meaning of Scots’ Ale. Thanks to Mat W. for the personal import.

Bottled. Orange amber with bubbly white head. Beautiful clear colour and a perfumed aroma, vaguely cranberries. A sweetish perfumed body, light on malts with a wild berry flavour. Easy to drink but 500ml is enough. Short sweet finish, pleasing without being dramatic. Late spiciness.

Amber coloured. Very nice and interesting aroma of flowers, spices and heather. Sweet flavour with notes of honey.

Original rating from 3/24/07: Pours a hazy amber with sparse but persistent carbonation. Smells of heath, pine, some pepper, spices. Tastes of perfumy wildflowers and sweet malt with a rich flowery finish. This is an enjoyable beer, but not in the same ballpark as the pine ale.
Ar: 7 App: 4 Fl: 6 Pa: 4 Ov: 13

Updated rating 2/23/08: As an experiment, I cellared a 4 year vertical of this beer to see how the Heather affects how this beer ages over time and also sampled an older bottle of Highlands Heather Ale for comparison.

2004 bottle: Aroma and flavor profile is dominated by caramel, some tartness has creeped into this beer, but amazingly, the floral hints presented by the heather have become slightly more pronounced.

2005 bottle: Some fading present, lots of sweetness, some floral hints, but not quite as pronounced at the 2004 bottle. Spiciness has blended nicely with the heather.

2006 bottle: Lots of caramel and some nuttiness as well as some dark fruit. Floral character from the Heather is not as established as in the older bottles.

2007 bottle: Lots of spice and caramel, hints of heather, not as much balance in the beer.

Overall impressions: This beer actually tastes better with a year or two of cellaring before starting to fade at around 3 years old. Nevertheless, this more extensive revisit of this beer has caused me to rethink my rating of the beer and bump the aroma and flavor scores to 8s and the overall to a 16. Definitely one of the more interesting beers out there. I’m looking forward to doing a similar comparison with their pine ale in the not too distant future.

Another one from the crazy Scotsmen…Flowers and herbs dipped in vanilla with a drop of lemon for good measure…Caramel syrup aged in wooden casks with a drop of honey for loads of pleasure…In the back of the tongue, a drop of bathroom cleaner for a good seizure…