Gale's Trafalgar 200 Ale
George Gale & Company Ltd

Jan. 2015: Rerate, 275 ml corked bottle, from Kihoskh, Copenhagen. ABV is 10%. Drunk at near room temperature, as recommended. Deep brownish red colour, no head nor any carbonation. Strong aroma of oak, malts, raisins and fusel alcohols. Oaky and malty flavour, notes of dark dried fruits, but not very sweet. A little carbonation would do wonders here.

Original rating: Shared bottle at local tasting. Cognac coloured beer, no head nor carbonation. Malty and oaky aroma and flavour, like a barleywine, but not overly sweet. Would profit from a little carbonation.

I remember grabbing this bottle from the old Pitfield Beer Shop in London, right before it was closed and went for only online businesses. Coming in a old-ish and cutie 275ml brown bottle, corked. No BBE date is available, but it was launched in 2005 to celebrate the 200 anniversary of the 1805 Battle of Trafalgar; served cool in a large tulip wine glass.

A: unique... the blood-orangey dark amber hue comes with a thick and fluffy, dirty pale orangey foam that slowly settles down, on top of medium carbonation with large bubbles.
S: tartness from prune-ish fruits & wood-barrels (like Oloroso Sherry) with flowery essence springs to mind; sticky and dense malt sweetness lags behind, along with musty hints of dried tangerine peels and licorice candy... Overall, the smell is tartly fruity, herbal, as well as sticky-malty.
T: quite mildly-flavoured swallow of malts leads towards a tart prune-ish as well as woody-Sherry theme, then the burned malts and licorice-like sweet herbal aftertaste lingers. Quite light in the end, with more mustiness and chewy yeastiness to entertain the rear of tongue.
M&D: mellow, but never short of critical amount of natural carbonation; this ale somehow drinks straight forward, but the sourness, bitterness, woody elements all serve to lift up the malty theme. A decent, old fashioned, cross b/w old ale and barley wine.

First: While a natural cork might look good and be a historically correct detail, but I find it quite unpractical.

With this brew, Gale is trying to make a beer with the raw materials and methods that were available at the time of the battle of Trafalgar in 1805, 200 years ago.

The colour is dark copper-red; the liquid is quite cloudy. There is no foam whatsoever.

A sweet note of strong wine dominates the smell, but there are also some notes of mat, cherry jam, wine gums and a touch of rubber.

The carbonation is short and surprisingly strong with small bubbles, but the alcohol makes an almost larger impression than the carbon dioxide.

The taste is fruity and very dry and sour, more like an unblended lambic than what I expected from an old ale. There are notes of raspberries and cherries; bitterness is quite mild. The aftertaste is very long with dry-sour flavours of dry fruits.

I found this beer more complex than this review might express, but I found it also very demanding: It is ale to be drunk with much concentration. Maybe it needs to mature for some years? I am not really sure of when it is most suited for consumption.