Traquair The Lairds Liquor

Brewed by Traquair
Style: Old Ale
Innerleithen, Borders, Scotland

Bottle: Dark red body,caramel and Whisky aroma.Sweet in the begining, but has a nice smoth bitternes in the end. A nice bitter/Sweet ale. If I can say so?

Beautiful clear brown with ruby highlights. Quickly diminishing light brown head. Aroma is light and sweet with hints of toffee, molasses and some dark grapes. Taste is caramel, roasted malt, chocolate, black liquorice and too much molasses. Medium finish with not hops whatsoever. Ok at first but grosses me out after a while. I didn’t find the kind of whisky-single-malt that I came to expect in a scotch ale. But it could be because I find the difference between a Scotch Ale and a Scottish Ale to be more confusing than a David Lynch movie. 330ml bottle.

Red copper ale with a thin white head. Light cassonade aroma with light spicey notes. Light malt with tingling mouthfeel, honey notes, rather thin bodied, like a diluted House beer. Butterscotch develops as beer warms up.

From the bottle.

Between the reputation of the brewery, the elegance of bottle (why does 11.2 oz outclass 12 oz every time?), and the fact that I carried this one with me in a polythene bag along with a half-dozen others all the way from Cambridge, UK to Seattle I’ve built up a fair bit of anticipation around this beer. It does not disappoint.

The beer pours a lovely toffee brown with abundant ruby highlights and a relatively short-lived tan head. The aroma is smoky and sweet with malt, rather like smoked sausage on maple-syrup pancakes (but in a pleasingly subtle way, not Darn-I-Guess-Dogfish-Head-Overdid-It-Again sort of way).

The flavor follows remarkably closely: smoky and complex, mildly sweet, gentle toffee and hints of raisin, some tea leaf, a wisp of anise, a soft bacon finish yielding not to hops but rather to roast grains and mouth-drying woodiness on the long end. The mouthfeel is well-rounded, sufficiently carbonated to give some life to what otherwise is a relatively thin 6% beer. In the end, the thinness doesn’t detract; rather it adds to the allure of the beer and encourages a deeper exploration of the flavor and palate.

Very nice.

Rich, clear brown color with a minimal head. Aroma is sweet and malty. Flavor is malt dominant with toffee and cooked honey. I would have guessed the alcohol at more than 6% as it is very apparent and gives a nice warming sensation. this beer is very inviting and easy to drink.

Bottle. Brown colour wit a beige head. Licorice aroma. Roasted licorice flavour. Roasted licorice finish.

Clear copper/ruby body mounted by an off-white film of decent lacing. Herbal, bready and cracker-like nose is gently roasty and deserves its Scottish roots through soft toffee and nut skin pedestals that make for a good and more than honest nose. Keeping on the same lineage on the tongue, it goes from toffee/toasted biscuits/bread toward a tiny anf fading metal character to ultimately end up surprisingly ashey with burnt malts and herbal/leafy character abundant, the whole deterioration undoubtedly to be blamed on the sad excuse of a palate. Woah, that body is a sad and complete ruin. Totally dead, almost no carbonation, very thin and immediately sticky. Surprising bad shape for such a reliable brewer as Traquair.

A mostly diminishing thin fizzy white vieil tops up a dark mahogany body. Moderate lacing. No particles. Few small bubbles. Unfiltered. Aroma presents malt being heavy bread /biscuty while hops are very faint ... Yeast character is light dough. Also, there are evident evocations of cherry/berries. Initial flavor is lighty acidic (in a fruity way.. seeds/core) while development leads to a fairly complex array of red fruits. Finish is medium and offers too much residual sugar for my taste. Borring body... watery texture... Soft carbonation...
[ Bottled ; chilled ; BB March ’06 ]