JW Lees - Any Clues on trade value?

All I know is that they're highly regarded barleywines that are said to age very well. Other than that I am of no help. (I'll see myself out.....)

 

It's a set of JW Lees Harvest Ale aged in differents types of casks. English barleywine with multiple barrel treatments to compare is a pretty cool gift. If the gift-giver wasn't a beer person themselves, I'd speculate they expended considerable effort to assemble these for you.

 

Here is where the review database will be your friend.

Find each beer. Sort by Top Reviewers. See what flavors people have discovered. Each of those beers is the same base beer that has been aged in unique previously used barrels for additional flavor components from the wood and prior contents of the barrel. If you are in no rush to drink them you can let them stand in a cool dark place for a year or two or 10 or more

BTW: Somebody must like you given that depending on where those bottles were purchased that is between $30-40 worth of beer.

 

These beers are fantastic and any lover of English barleywines owes it to themself to try them. I personally enjoy the Sherry version the best (but I guess thats because I like Sherry a lot)

 

I've had the Sherry and Calvados cask versions of those. Loved them both, but partial to the Calvados. I'd love to try the other two. You're in for a treat if you like English style B.W.s.

 

I was going to mention this, it's got to be close to $35 at a place with only a very slight markup. Also very good stuff.

 

Nice gift. Great beers.

 

Are they tradeable? I've seen them at a store i frequent.

 

If you're so inclined they will age well for decades.

 

http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/178/?sort=styleA&view=beers

 

Where?

 

Mean, where did you find them in MI?

 

They are unlikely to draw much if any trade interest as they are widely available across the country.

Excellent beers that are really complex and more than a little challenging. Lots going on in comparison with many American takes on the English bw style. I get a lot more dark fruitiness, oxidized sherry notes, tobacco, and other interesting flavors, then I might from say, sucaba. Lighter in body and lower in alcohol as well. I freely admit to a preference for the best of the American versions in what may be my current favorite style. These blur the line between old ale and bw a bit. I'd save them and drink them myself when the mood strikes.

 

A real treat. Not exactly hard to find, but pretty expensive little bottles. If you find yourself not enjoying the first one you open, I would recommend setting the rest aside to age. J W Less Barleywines are top notch in my opinion.

 

People say these age for decades and im sur eunder certain conditions that must be true but ive had many, many awful ones from 06, 07, 08...
So many so i stopped buying them
They are shelf turds here. Seriously.

 

Are you sure you just don't like them? I've never noticed any negative flavors from one's off the shelf, then again I don't live in what must be as close as we get to hell aka Arizona so that could be on my side.

 

You must enjoy extremely sweet english barleywines to drink these. I drain poured most of them after about half a bottle, it was like drinking syrup. I've tried versions fresh to about 5 years old, as well as all variants. And I like sweet beers. Just had Creme Brulee last weekend (it was delicious).

Dope

 

The sherry barrel one is fairly tasty but goes downhill rapidly. The Lagavulin barrel is interesting but deeply polarizing; they aren't aiming for subtlety with that version. The only calvados one I have had was too old to taste the barrel but not old enough to match the regular, and I have never tried the port barrel variant.

In other words, I generally like them but less than the standard, non-barreled Harvest Ale. That one is truly world-class (with a cellaring caveat) and also marginally cheaper.

I don't know anyone who thinks these versions age for decades. The regular, barrel-free version is a different story. The problem here is that fresh JW Lees is one of the most incomplete, boring, and generally unremarkable barleywines out there, not to mention obviously not ready to drink. This beer at 5 years is a shadow of its glory at 8+ yesrs and the company knows it. As near as I can tell the brewers hold back nearly half of any given batch so they can release it when people actually want it, years down the road. The 1999 bottle I bought in 2010 looked like it had a brand new label.

Why is this a problem for the barreled versions? Because almost no beer can survive for a decade on wood. Too much oxygen exposure. So in the barreled versions, the base beer doesn't age long enough in the barrels to iron out its deficiencies and the barreling process changes the beer too much for it to cellar the same.

The ratings bear this out. There's few barrel-aged barleywines that consistently score lower than their base beer, but last I checked ALL of the BA JW Lees beers have that distinction.