Old Disreputable
Three Rivers Brewing Company

Bottle-conditioned and coming in a 500ml brown bottle, freshness info. unknown; served cool in Hapkin's tulip-shaped bowl sniffer. BTW, the label says "gluten free"(?!).

A: pours an ultra elegant dark purple-red colour, topped with a thin layer of beige frothy head that manages to last throughout the drink, on top of very mild and constant streams of tiny bubbles.
S: rather fruity, suggesting notes of raisins (or not so sweet dried grapes), aromatic black-cherry skins, a touch of coconut and licorice, on top of underlying lightly smoked malts, dark chocolaty malts laced with mild hints of dark tea-leaves. Overall, quite like Fuller's 1845 without the more complex composition of hops but the fruity mixture is just as remarkable.
T: the light foretaste features licorice-like herbal sweetness, sour-sweet raisins+prunes, and restrained smoked longan-fruits, on top of surprisingly light-bodied dark toasted malts (crystal malts?) almost like a stronger dark mild, gradually giving way to slightly bitter aftertaste, where bitter roasted tea-leaves, just like on the nose, manage to chime in and add a little extra joy to the main malty theme. At the very end, a soothing undertone of more dryish bitter, ground root-herbs lingers on a par with aromatic, toasted-walnutty burned malts, serving to balance off the light-bodied malt sweetness that dominates the first half of tasting.
M&D: the bottle-conditioning is a success in that the carbonation comes refreshing and also consistently fine, not far from the texture of a fresh cask-conditioned ale. This is like an old ale but the supposed stale-character is nearly non-existent, so I'd say this is brewed to the tradition of stronger dark mild in the Victorian days. Very drinkable and enjoyable, but I simply couldn't comprehend why this normal ale can be "gluten free"? Would someone plz kindly enlighten me?