George Gale Conquest Masterbrew

Aroma: 6 | Appearance: 4 | Mouthfeel: 4 | Flavor: 4 | Overall: 4

This beer did not age well. It's 5 years old and ended up in rose bush out back. A hazy mahogany pour with no head, and no effervescence. Like a lot of high alcohol British beers, the alcohol is noticeable. The flavour is very sweet with lots of caramel and raisins. Not a lot in the way of balance here

Aroma: 4 | Appearance: 4 | Mouthfeel: 3 | Flavor: 2 | Overall: 2

2001 vintage corked bottle. Picked up this and a couple other vintage beers just to see what all the hype was about aging beers. Pours a dark bronze/amber with no head, almost no bubbles whatsoever. Whatever yeast was in the bottle stayed there. Aroma is tart and sour, strong vinegar notes along with dark fruits. Taste is just not good. Tart, sour, kind of spoiled-like. Like drinking a very bad, fruity gin. Just not good.

Aroma: 6 | Appearance: 9 | Mouthfeel: 8 | Flavor: 8 | Overall: 7

aged bottle from 2001 .. . fruity aromas, dark stuff... no real head .. aged caramel and fruits .. . very nice mouth, smooth and sticky sweet .. . maybe some rum and honey and fruit tastes .. aged to a tee.... . who is your daddy and what does he do???

Aroma: 5 | Appearance: 5 | Mouthfeel: 4 | Flavor: 5 | Overall: 4

A corked 275ml! Pours an amber color with absolutely no head and no lacing. No carbonation either. Aroma is of sour alcohol, old musty oak, damp malts, and old fruits. Tastes like the aroma. Not one I'll drink again.

Aroma: 2 | Appearance: 2 | Mouthfeel: 2 | Flavor: 3 | Overall: 3

This barley wine pours a dark amber color from a cork finished 275ml bottle. No head. Aroma is spicy, some malt, some banana and a touch earthy, with a touch of alcohol. A medium bodied barleywine. Malts are caramel and sweet, with lots of port wine flavors. There seems to be a lot of wine lees and wine must as well. There is also a lot of apple cider flavors. I not sure just what is going on here, its kind of apple cider and bad port wine with some malt and hops. Thin and watery. Flat and listless. This stuff is in a word ‘”horrid”. Does the conquest part of the name imply that this is what they make you drink if you lose the war? Mouthfeel is thin. Finish is murky and muddy. Aftertaste is vinous and sour.

Aroma: 7 | Appearance: 8 | Mouthfeel: 7 | Flavor: 8 | Overall: 7

A 2001 Vintage bottle that I've had laying around in me "cellar" for a while. Seeing that I'm flying out on Monday to work on a Navy ship while it's underway for a week or two, I figure I'll make up that time now by drinking some of my better beers now! While I'm not sure if I would call this a "Master Brew", and I'm not sure if it's worth the price for only 9oz of beer, Gale's Conquest Brew is still interesting.

The sample I had was well-corked, and was able to pull it out without destroying the cork, poking cork fragments into the beer, or (worst of all) having to restort in pushing the cork into the beer to get the beer out of the bottle (all things I've had to do with other Gale's ales...).

Distinct alcohol prescence from the first wiff of the aroma, through the first sip of the beer, all the way through to the end of the bottle. This alcohol omnipresence can be a bit disspiriting after a while, but still isn't too distracting.

Classic fruit-and-berry flavor profile, that seems to be the norm for many English barleywine-ish beers. Nothing too complex, but then again, surely this isn't simply Bass kicked up a notch, either!

While overall I don't have a lot to say that's overtly positive about this (truth is that I was a touch disappointed), at the same time I don't have many negative things to say about this. Not really worth the price, IMO, but may be worth grabbing for long(er)-term cellaring.
//TB