J.W. Lees Harvest Ale '08

mind blowing beer. get as many as you can.

 

Hope you clothes lined the entire shelf when you were there.
Haven't tried the '08 yet. But if its anything like my last straight Harvest Ale (the '06) you will be for quite a treat.

BTW, awesome avatar of the seldom seen hippy Beer Messiah in his prime. Love it.

 

I tried it recently and didn't think it was that great. I had the calvados version. The beer was just way too oxidized for my tastes, I like fresher beer. The predominant flavor is stale cardboard. The calvados element was nice though.

That's just my opinion though, if you like aged beer, you'll probably love this. As far as aged goes, I think its exactly what they're going for. It feels very controlled. I doubt there are many beers that could last 6 years and not be totally unpredictable. I'm at least glad I tried it, from now on I will be drinking all my beer either as fresh as possible or just slightly aged for old ales and barleywines.

 

The cask versions are known to not hold up as well as the base beer, which does beautifully up to a decade from my experiences. I feel that straight bottling it and not setting it aside for a while in a barrel, then force carbing cuts down the threat of oxidation. Still delicious but a little flat after 5-6 years.

 

Here's my review from the September cellar review thread:

2008 J.W. Lees Harvest Ale

Served in a pub glass, refrigerated at 55 to settle the obvious chunks that showed in the bottle when moving from the cellar to the fridge.

Pours still, crystal clear amber, smells of butterscotch, plums, candied dates, caramel. Taste is caramel with a sudden chlorophyll back end; rather shocking to have such a vegetal taste, turns more earthy mineral as it warms. Sweet beets comes to mind, sweet beets. Slight carbonation on the back. This tastes like sweet beets with prunes/raisins. Vegetal/earth/mineral flavor begins to fade after the initial few sips, as it airs out. I really should have let this glass breathe a few minutes after opening, as is de rigueur with aged bottles that begin to reach the "long term" aging realm, as is intended with the other 08s- I plan to take these decades.

As it warms- earthen sweet candy, tiny effervescent bubbles, medium-thick body. Pretty darn good, more earthy than Thomas Hardy, more carbonation as well, very nice late season sipper!

 

I have not had the 08 yet but it is indeed well-known that the barrel versions don't hold up that well, in addition to just being held in worse regard generally. People regularly consume the standard with 10+ years on it and frankly very few people like it any other way. The beer just isn't that good while young.

I've had it up to 12 years with absolutely no cardboard flavor at all. This beer more than any other is a prime example of that toffee-almond oxidation only seen in Madeira and a few barleywines. No cardboard, not even any sherry, just pure English toffee.

Drooling now thinking about it.

 

Nice to see this beer getting some appreciation here since its often outright ignored in England. In Scotland its even worse. And not trying to be pendantic but Harvest Ale really shouldn't be refrigerated. Difficult I know if you're in a hot climate (as opposed to the hurly burly blowing outside my window at the moment) but no cooler than 50F if you can.

 

I agree. My highest review of any beer here on BA was a 2002 bottle drank in 2012.

 

Mind elaborating? I've got a 1987 Thomas Hardy to open soon and definitely want to make the most of experience. Pour gently, leave out for 5-10 minutes, sip? What's the benefit to letting it breathe? Cheers!

 

Agreed. I tell everyone who buys a bottle that if they chill it I'm going to to their house to take it from them, and give them a Bud Light in return.

 

Sorry, but it's at a minimum pedantic to correct someone on something they explicitly didn't do.

 

In his defense he is from the UK- er I mean England . As a transplant from the PNW living down here in the drrty drrty souf, I never knew what hot was. Things out of the fridge are still relatively warm compared to that up north. Kinda weird. Also the days don't last as long in the summer down here.

 

Yes no problem. With wines you let the bottle breathe- essentially open the bottle and set it down and walk away for a time. There is some timeframe "rules"/best practices (ie: 1 minute for every year the bottle is old or something like that.). The oxygen reacts with the wine and opens up the bouquet, and allows the undesirable flavors of age to off-gas. There is some sciency-chemistry mumbojumbo, but I'm not smart enough to regurgitate such hokum.

I think that practice can and should carry over to our world in beer for "extremely aged beers" (basically anything past about 5ish years- and this is purely an arbitrary age). If I find that an aged bottle has an off flavor I don't like (earthy beets), I set the glass aside and come back in a few 4-5 minutes and those flavors fade and sometimes disappear. So I am a firm believer in letting a glass breathe, or if you like you could do like the winos do and leave it in the bottle to breathe. However I seldom remember to let a beer breathe first thing, and always test the waters with a first few sips...

 

I know, I know, but I'm skeptical of all beer to fridge contact irrespect of chunk sediment.

 

You pot stirrer. I'm not originally from SCOTLAND () but I've been chained here by work, family and booze for some time now and in that time standards and memory change.

 

It could be worse, work could force you to move to Arkansas- consider yourself lucky to be north of Hadrians Wall!

 

It was really quite odd, directly from the cellar the chunks seemed compacted into a nice 1/4" cake. The 60" trek to the kitchen yielded the bottom half hazed with sediment. From the fridge after several hours, the whole bottle appeared hazed over, however the pour was crystal clear (and no it was not bottle sweat, I wiped the outside down and the haze was on the inside). I guess I shouldn't shake the bottles like maracas and sing my cellar song of "I'm drinkin old cellar beer, it's really really old right here, drinkin cellar celly beeeeeeer!"

 

Though I am all for progress and learning from experience, I am also a firm believer in the importance of tradition and maintaining a connection to our past. I think it would be a mistake to abandon your cellar ritual.

 

I've never had one of these, but I live in Buffalo and I am planning to go to premier Gourmet tomorrow to pick up some holiday beers. I think I'll grab one of these.
Is there any year in particular that I should keep an eye out for?