J.W. Lees Vintage Harvest Ale

Beer: J.W. Lees Vintage Harvest Ale
Brewery Location: Manchester, UK
Beer Style: Barleywine
Serving Style: Bottle
ABV: 11.5%


J.W. Lees is one of the oldest breweries around with distribution to America. 1828 is when the company started brewing beer. This beer is released every year in December and is perfect for vintage cellaring. If you see it at the stores (Kahn's and Party Pak have plenty) you will see each label always shows the year of vintage. Certain years are more prized than others just like fine wine vintages. If you are ever lucky enough to be in the cellar at the Heorot it has bottles from 1987 and 1988, and I am sure pretty much every other year, but those stand out in my mind. This bottle is the 1997 vintage.

It pours a dark brown body with ruby highlights at the edges. No head from an unaggressive pour that left minimal spotty lacing on my glass. The nose is really surprising. It has big scents of sweetened dark fruit, maple sugar, and a port-wine alcohol scent dominating the nose. I love having my nose in this beer. The flavor profile is amazingly complex with dark fruits (plums, figs, and raisins) brown sugar, and rich malt. The flavors meld to perfection on this 11 year old beer. The mouthfeel is sticky and still velvety on my palate. I can barely notice the alcohol on this, but the warmth from the alcohol is felt about halfway down the beer. I could get in trouble with the drink ability on this beer. The alcohol is not present on the mouthfeel, but the warmth feels really nice on this cold and snowy night.

Overall, this beer is a big winner in my book. After 11 years this beer is really something special. The flavor profile and mouthfeel were my two big winners for this beer. This is the type of beer that would hopefully turn a few wine lovers onto aged beer and really showcase what some age can do to a beer. Well done J.W. Lees.

Cheers!
Matt