Wee Heavy
Lawson's Finest Liquids

Serving: Bottle
Bottled: No date
Consumed: Sept-2-2023

Pours ruddy mahogany, crystal clear, big cap of beige head. Lovely to look at. The aroma is quite big and varied and the taste is right there with it. Big dried dark fruits, caramel, light boozy sweetness and enough barrel character to add to the beer but not enough to easily say, "oh yeah that was definitely in a barrel at some point." Sweet but not sugary, rich but not boozy, strong and big but not enormous-feeling. A quality sipper. Drinks well as it warms and every little whiff/sip is a cascading series of morphing flavors that make up the backbone of the style. Very nice beer.


4.25...4.25...4.75...4.5...4.25

This one pours a fairly dark brown color, with a small head, and a little bit of lacing.

This smells like chocolate, toffee, peat, campfire smoke, vanilla, oak, and spice.

Although the flavor falls off a bit on the very end of this beer, there’s a lot to like here. The rye barrel works really nice – it adds oak and rye spice, with some caramel and leather notes that work well with the lightly peaty and almost barleywine like wee heavy base. There’s a touch of chocolate and lots of breadiness.

This is creamy up front, but slightly thin on the finish. There’s barely any booziness.

This was a very tasty barrel aged beer from Lawson’s – not perfect, but tasty all the same.

From a 500ml bottle, undated. ‘Aged in rye whiskey barrels.’ 9.0% abv. Purchased at the brewery 05/14/23. Served in a spiegelau tulip glass. I actually own a thistle glass. I didn’t feel like using it.

Pours cream soda colored with warm caramel highlights and a scant two-finger head of soft beige head. Retention is decent enough considering the abv, settling to a bubbly cap and a rousable sheet of slippery, sudsy lacing.

Nose is sweet and fruity. Aroma of brown sugar and dates. Reminiscent of sticky date pudding.

Taste is sweet and warm and only mildly boozy. Dried, dark fruits and punky wood. Dates, figs, prunes, toffee. Think fruitcake, but with a slightly wild, funky edge - I wouldn’t be surprised if there was infection but I’m not complaining. Alcohol is noted, bringing a little caramel smokiness into the sugary toffee character, but in no way dominates. Finishes like a sip of sweet Turkish coffee.

Feel is smooth, chewy, medium bodied and maybe just a little bit light relative to the style. Carbonation is gentle and prickly with only very mild detectable booziness. There’s enough sugary sweetness to make you worry about tooth decay but that is, of course, utterly right and proper relative to the style.

Overall, an enjoyable high-octane beverage at least in part because I know that my blood sugar is good and that I’m not in immediate peril of diabetes. It seemed to me somewhat ‘thin,’ both in terms of taste and feel, and I’m not sure what all the rye whiskey barrels contributed other than a punky woodiness which I may be confusing with infection. But, bottom line, I drank it all up and I enjoyed it just fine.