Lacada Utopian Stout

Origin: Ireland | Date: 2016 | ABV: 8% | On The Beer Nut: April 2016

"Limited Edition" says the label. It's something of a habit among breweries to take a recipe intended as a one-off and put it into regular production. Such has happened with this imperial stout from Lacada, now available in a full half-litre. But today I'm going back to its roots as no. 1 in the Lacada Salamander Series of experimental beers. "Best before 15/02/2017", we are advised.

It crackles into the glass thinly and I feared for the beer's smoothness, wondering if some wild fermentation had attenuated it down to thin vinegar. Thankfully not: it's still satisfyingly chewy. The various fruit, candy and cocoa flavours have melded together into a single floral-spicy taste: part cola, part Kola Kube, with a backing of tar and tobacco. A tang of hop bitterness stops the dark malt from running away with it completely. Best of all, there are none of the signs of wonky ageing: no oxidation or autolysis, all is mellow and easy-going.

I'm not sure if this one warrants further ageing. The off-flavours mentioned above could be primed to develop at any moment, and there's enough of a difference between this and how it originally tasted for me to feel I got my money's worth out of the cellaring. If you have one, get it open now, say I.

Five Points Brick Field Brown

Origin: UK | Date: 2017 | ABV: 5.4% | On The Beer Nut: March 2018

Today's beer never actually made it into the stash. It was acquired quite recently as part of a cellar clear-out at UnderDog and I suspect it's a leftover from the Five Points launch event they hosted in February 2018. It was bottled in November of the previous year and has a best-before of just over seven months ago. I reckon that's about long enough to be considered vintage.

In my original review I complained about over-carbonation. It's always a risk with an unfiltered and unpasteurised beer like this, that it will get worse with age as the yeast keeps on chomping through the sugars. But it poured evenly and easily, forming a slim off-white head over the deep chocolate-brown body.

It's still very dry, showing a wheaty breakfast-cereal crunch with the vanilla and cocoa powder of mid-range milk chocolate. The texture is pleasingly soft, which was definitely not my experience last time out, and there's a pleasant cherry or strawberry jam note which wasn't there before.

I think Brick Field may be a good one for ageing, longer than this bottle got, and my bottle certainly hasn't got worse since it was fresh. The beer is robust enough to add complexities as time goes on, and so long as it doesn't dry out totally, there could be something fun yet to emerge. Don't touch that bottle-opener!

O'Hara's Barrel Aged Barley Wine

Origin: Ireland | Date: 2014 | ABV: 9.6% | On The Beer Nut: September 2013

In a change to the usual procedure, this post is about a beer from someone else's stash. I was given this bottle by Brendan yesterday in payment for some enjoyable consultancy work. Strictly speaking I haven't reviewed it before: the link above is to the original non-barrel version at 7.1% ABV, before it got 90 days in an Irish whiskey cask. I think I did taste this edition at some point, however, and wasn't terribly impressed.

If that's the case then time has been good to it. There's a genuinely vinous richness, packed with plump juicy raisins and sweet plum. I got a layer of velvety chocolate too, more suited to a porter than a barley wine but inarguably delicious. The whiskey character, if there ever was one, has faded to almost nothing, just a slight note of oaky vanilla. A very mild beefy autolytic twang is the only sign of wear and tear, but it's so slight as to be all but imperceptible.

This isn't terribly complex, and I was expecting more going on, given the ageing, the strength and the extended cellaring, but I'm very happy with how it turned out. It's smooth, mellow and very tasty. Well worth a pop if you have one stashed.