St-Ambroise Vintage Ale Millésimée 2013
McAuslan Brewing

Opened Dec 2016....lets see how this baby aged!

A- This Vintage Ale pours a copper hued color with big tinges of orange and perhaps even a rusty tone! The head is minimal but I'm impressed with how the undercurrent of the carbonation and how it rises to the top of the liquid upon a medium heavy pour strength and throughout the drink, the shapes that form in the film is amazing! Lacing is modest, yet there is plenty of very small spheres of protein sticking to the side of the glass....overall very decent looking!

S- Initial aromas of deep caramel/toffee right out of the bottle and upon pouring there becomes a medley of jammy preserved fruits such as apricot, plum, apple and peach. Also noted is confectioners sugar and candied undertones, marmalade hints, glazed cherry and a clean yet semi leafy finish....

T- This is very much like a strong English Pale Ale, but more refined! There is boozy sweet malts present right up front with quick to balance hop bitterness. Undertones include raisins, plum, wood char, fruit preserves, slightly honeyed molasses and tart cherry on the finish, and it becomes more as it warms....

M/O- Superbly champagne like, creamy medium bodied and highly drinkable! I think anybody who gets a chance to try this beer after a few years of aging will be pleasantly surprised! Very nice on its own and would pair well with some chocolate or a cobbler! Glad I picked this one up and recommend it!

 

 

 

 

 

Bottle to tulip glass. One finger head fades quicly to a thing ring of retention, some spotty, carribean island lacing. Dark hazy copper color, some yeast bits floating around in there!

N: More hop forward than i anticipated! Citrusy Cascade hops coming right through, followed by sweet caramel malts and honey. I know "barleywine" is not in any way wine, but the alcohol content gives this a wine type smell when you first crack her open.

T: Pleasantly bitter and citrusy, sweet malts, sweet breads (not to be confused with the meat!), Pretty boozy.

M: Pretty full-bodied, good carbonation, very sticky though, goes down pretty smooth. I find mainly stouts and double IPA's mask high ABV well, but this is pretty smooth

O: Impressive for a St-Ambroise. Their mainstream stuff is great, nothing special, but very drinkable, however, they show what theyre capable of with their specialty beers like this one. However, at nearly 8$ a bottle, many quebec microbreweries put out better stuff at less than half the price. If you're a fan of st-ambroise, its worth trying because it blows their common brews out of the water, otherwise, save your money. They fancy it up in a cardboard cylinder like its a bottle of scotch, that kind of thing gets me.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This bottle was from the vintage mixed pack released around Christmas in 2013. From notes.

A - Poured bright and coppery in colour. Three fingers of fluffy beige head on top. Good carb, spotty lace, and a finger of retention.

S - Sugar, yeast, dark fruit.

T - Rough hops, dark fruit, lot's of sugar, maple.

M - Dryness to finish, good carbonation, full body.

O/D - Probably needs a year or two and seemed a little young. Decent enough but the flavours haven't developed properly. Enjoyable nonetheless.

 

341 ml bottle poured into a Big Rock snifter. Poured at 12C, warmed through drinking to 18C.

The beer pours a nice copper/amber colour with about 2/3 finger of off-white light head. Aromas of dark fruit, caramel sweetness, ashy notes and some booziness come through. It reminds me a lot of the Belgian quadrupel style in its aroma. The first taste that hits me is the caramel sweetness, and booze-soaked dark fruit, along with some faint ashy notes. There is also a discernible floral hoppy character mixed in with the malty backbone. For a higher ABV beer, the mouthfeel is quite light, with a pleasant, lingering caramel sweetness on your palette.

This beer will age well. I bought one to drink right away and a couple to try in a year and beyond. The slight booziness and sweetness should fade away, bringing out the malty character and some new flavors. This is a great beer to treat like a glass of brandy or scotch on a cold evening - drink slowly and watch it evolve as it warms to room temperature

 

341ml bottle, ensconced, as per usual, in a slick cardboard tube, 2013 vintage. I somehow missed this one last year - oh, right - none made its way to the west - that minor oversight has apparently been addressed this year.

This beer pours a rather clear (given the 'unfiltered' proclamation on the label) medium copper amber hue, with three fingers of puffy, frothy, and densely foamy pale beige head, which leaves some pretty broad swaths of newfound continental shelf lace around the glass as it genially recedes.

It smells of a somewhat pungent plum and soaked prune fruitiness, musty caramel and toffee malt, a further boozy orchard fruit essence, one that evokes memories of wine tasting and fruit picking in the Okanagan, a hint of tobacco ash, and perfumed floral hops. The taste is more hefty, near-overbearing edgy black fruit - plum, cherry, and musty figs - a middling caramel, toffee, and treacle maltiness, acrid vanilla, persistent dry tobacco notes, frolicking Christmas cake spice, a wee bit of metallic alcohol, and still stuporous earthy, weedy hops.

The carbonation is gently frothy at best, egregiously AWOL at worst, the body a sticky medium weight, and mostly smooth, the alcohol making due ingress by this point, yet still to thankfully no ill effect. It finishes on the sweet side, the complex, and of course soused black fruit, laid-back caramel malt, burgeoning mustiness, and not so surprisingly underwhelming hops (I wouldn't be saying that, but for the marketing assertion here) doing a little 'ya don't have to go home, but ya can't stay here' jig for us.

A generally pleasant, and relatively sedate old world barleywine (although I'm getting a lot of old ale character here, the freshness of this offering just doesn't warrant such classification - not yet, anyway). Perhaps I should have let this one age for a spell, but I'm happy to report on its condition now, so we can all see how things progress down the road. Oh, right - memo to self - grab another of these for future contemplation, before our limited supply is bled dry.