Orkney Skull Splitter (Cask)

Brewed by Orkney (Sinclair Breweries)
Style: Barley Wine
Stromness, Orkney, Highlands & Islands, Scotland

Cask (gravity) @ The National Winter Ales Festival 2008, Manchester, UK. Unclear medium amber color with a small, fizzy, fair lacing, fully diminishing, light beige head. Aroma is moderate malty, roasted, caramel, english licorice. Flavor is moderate to light heavy sweet and bitter with a long duration. Body is medium, texture is oily - syrupy, carbonation is flat. (190108)

From cask at Charlies. Pours deep orange, clear, and with a white head. Aroma is light fruity and solid caramel maty. Flavour is mild caramel, light fruity and sweet. Ends with alcohol presence and a lingering malty note.

Cask @ The Wharf, Aalborg. Nice clear deep amber colour with a good lasting beige head. The aroma is sweet with dark fruits and toasted malt. The flavour is sweet with dark fruits, alcohol, bitter hops and malt.

Cask at Charlie’s Bar, Copenhagen. A dark amber beer with a thin rim of tan head. The aroma is sweet malty with strong notes of caramel and lesser notes of alcohol. The flavor is sweet with alcohol tickling the tongue and the palate combined with strong notes of caramel. A good warming beer on a cold winter night.

Cask @ The Wharf, Aalborg. Pours deep, golden amber/red with a frothy off-white/grey head. Aroma has coffee at first, then sweet fruits; plums. Remote acidic touch. Flavour is sweet and fruity – plums again. Fruity notes in the finish – banana? Coffee notes as it warms. 24-01-08.

Cask (Gallows Bird, Espoo, Real Ale Festival 2004) Sweet and strong. Even. Tart fruitiness, also grainy, but nothing sticks out more than the sweetness and overall strength, which of course implies that the alcohol is noticable. Not so much a barley wine, too ’young’. It’s just an extra strong Scottish bitter.

Cask Ultimate Glasgow tasting afters pub crawl: Poured a dark brown with creamy head. Nice fruit aroma and malt. The taste is malt with fruit hints and some spice.

Cask at the White Horse, Parson’s Green, early 2007. Similar to the bottled version, but more cloying in the mouth and the alcohol is distinctly more evident! Overall, a good beer that is worth trying.