Traquair House Ale

Brewed by Traquair
Style: English Strong Ale
Innerleithen, Borders, Scotland

Very nice brown color. Full of rich malty flavor with a touch of smokey flavor that gives it that scottish flavor. Not really any noticable hop flavor, basically all malt.

Bottle. Poured deep, deep red with a great frothy head that stuck around for a while. Aroma is a little light at first, but takes off as it warms ... toffee, cherry, licorice, fig and a hint of chocolate. Very smooth in the mouth. In fact, there is no astringency at all. Flavor, like the aroma, takes off as it warms. Chocolate, cherry, bourbon, licorice and molasses all dominate, but they play nice. I’m not really sure what it is, but this one is greater than the sum of it’s parts, and is really a fantastic brew.

Bottle. Look s exactly like cola. Nose-kind of a malty mildewy weird nose. Taste-some peaty smoke, brown ale fkavors, unsweetened toffee, unsweet honey, dry, bland malt, cereal, and artificial grape. Not bad, but not good on it’s own. Would probably go with food rather well. If I blindly tatsted this and was asked to name the style, I would say that it was a very strong brown ale.

Medium beige offwhite creamy head with larger bubbles. Dark red-brown body. Sweetish musty aroma rather like whipped cream. Sweet, smoky, lightly roasty taste with notes of licorice. Sweetish, dry aftertaste. Good, quite interesting.

(Bottled) Colour is dark brown with notes of copper, off-white head. Roasted and fruity nose with coffee, spices (clove?) and dark chocolate with orange zest. Full and round taste with some sweetness (brown sugar), dark roasted coffee, dried fruit and dark, bitter chocolate and/or toffee. Some bitterness and a lot drier towards the end. Long finish with a brown palate (don’t know why, but it just feels ... brown). Lots of taste, the alcohol is well hidden, which makes this is a very well balanced and constructed beer. Absolutely brilliant!

Excellent. Surprisingly little aroma, this beautiful, dark, brown specimen lends itself into a delicate yet complex rich flavor with a surprisingly huge palate that leaves almost no residual sweetness behind A masterpiece. Some burnt toffee notes in the background, but this seems to be exclusively from kettle carmelization and not from the malt. Pale malt flavors predominate and are exactly what this beer needs to present. Very clean. A masterpiece (oh wait ... I already said that).

Pours deep red with a 1/2", stable tan head. Musky, dank, slightly cheesy aroma with some floral and caramel notes. Sweet, clean and caramelly. Has some notes of whiskey and smoke. Finishes drier than the flavor would suggest, with some puckering bitterness. Nice beer that would be good with roast duck.

Bottle. Poured a hazy brown with a thin off-white head that dissipated quickly. Great mix of dark fruits and sweet malts in the aroma. The flavor was mainly dark fruits but had a nice milk chocolate tone to it also. Medium body, slightly creamy texture, and a smoky aftertaste. An excellent ale!