Ten Penny Ale Reserve
The Olde Burnside Brewing Company

Ten Penny Ale ReserveTen Penny Ale Reserve
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From:
The Olde Burnside Brewing Company
 
Connecticut, United States
Style:
Scotch Ale / Wee Heavy
ABV:
9.2%
Score:
85
Avg:
3.74 | pDev: 16.04%
Reviews:
44
Ratings:
75
Status:
Retired
Rated:
Feb 11, 2023
Added:
Apr 02, 2007
Wants:
  11
Gots:
  5
Ten Penny Ale Reserve the much stronger version of our original Ten Penny recipe. This beer is a dark brown ale, topped by a thick, loose tan head. The smells of roasted grain and toffee are the first things you will notice with your nose when you crack open the bottle. The tasting experience begins with a splash of caramel like flavor on the tongue, but quickly melds into a full bodied roasted-malt taste. As you savor this fine ale you will also encounter subtle hints of chocolate and a smoked-malt essence. After you have finished your bottle you will realize this beer is truly a wonderful merging of high alcohol content and rich full body flavor that will make you want another pint to drink.
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Ratings by Pahn:
Photo of Pahn
Reviewed by Pahn from New York

3.87/5  rDev +3.5%
look: 4 | smell: 4.5 | taste: 3.5 | feel: 3.5 | overall: 4
1 pint swingtop blue glass growler/bottle into Duvel tulip. This year's release.

Appearance: Frantic pour (it gushed; carbonation) yields a 2 inch fizzy offwhite head that dissipates steadily and lacelessly. Pours a semi-opaque light maroon. Leaves no lacing, but I quite like the color.

Smell: Sweet, brown sugar. After a few seconds, it smells spot on like a freshly baked oatmeal raisin cookie. It's as if one took an oatmeal raisin cookie, melted it, and added it to a beer. Smells like cinnamon, sugar cookies, etc.

Maybe a bit too sweet tooth-oriented to really get me excited, but I have to admit that it smells great. I especially like how it has that sort of hard cookie bite to it... I wish I could describe that better. It doesn't just remind me of cookies, it has aromas so tell-tale of cookie that I would be fooled in a blind test ("sweet beer, or beer soaked cookie?").

Taste: Yikes, assaulted by this overwhelming malty tanginess. That's all I get from the first sip, and I hate it.

Second sip tastes like cinnamon up front, with some bready notes tempering the insipid tanginess. With time, the oatmeal cookie notes from the aroma come out, along with some toasted rye bread and butterscotch. After awhile, the trademark Ten Penny hard water profile emerges as well. The unforgivable tang disappears early on, thankfully.

The taste is good, but it could really use some hop bitterness, or roasted malt, or smoked / peated malt, or hot alcohol, or *something* to tame the sweetness. I'd hate to see the donut bills for whoever wrote the recipe of this beer.

Mouthfeel: Light side of medium bodied. Watery at times--which actually isn't as bad as it sounds; a sugary feel would be disgusting with this level of sweetness, so you're grateful for the juicy/wateriness.

Moderate carbonation. Boring finish (mildly underattenuated feel). Forgettable feel overall, but no outright flaws and not the worst vessel for the flavor.

Overall: I liked the version of this that came out last year and the year before better... can't say this beer speaks too highly of my hometown brewery's quality control (as in lack of batch variation). This bottle definitely solves some of the mystery of why this year's cognac barrel aged Amazing Grace (this beer, barrel aged) was so unbearable: like adding 5 sugar packets into a glass of Coca Cola.

That said, I actually do like the beer. It goes a little too far with the sweetness, but it provides some good, unique flavor.
May 24, 2012
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Ten Penny Ale Reserve from The Olde Burnside Brewing Company
Beer rating: 85 out of 100 with 75 ratings