J.W. Lees Harvest Ale (Port)

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

Drank the 2009 last night. Drank on Nov 3 2012. What an amazing beer! Nothing like any other barleywine I have ever had. A little hot alcohol, but very mellow, tons and tons and tons of fruit on the nose, sweet wild strawberry in particular. Some slight port characteristics, but not really. A great great beer. Even lots of carbonation left after a couple years aging...

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

Pours a dark, slightly hazy cola brown with a decent light tan head. Aroma has a strong overtone of miso plus a firm note of port and hints of malt and caramel. Malty, fruity flavor has an overtone of miso and an underpinning of wood - plus quite a bite from the alcohol and some woody bitterness. Texture is thick and smooth, not quite syrupy, a little lacking in fizz.

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

Nice nice nice! Pours darkish apple, tons of sediment. Aroma is sweet. Mothfeel sticky sweet. Lots of settling occurs. Flavors abound, love this stuff.

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

Been holding on to this for about 2 years, bottle from 2007 .. dark marmalade colour .. no head .. sweet maple, light rum, light port, and a touch of sweet oak .. . lots of brown floaties at the bottom of the bottle .. pester! you're on a different planet! .. . sugar, burnt rubber, caramel, rum, vanilla essence, mud and wet wood (cask/keg) flavours .. wow, has held up well with the heat, but at a slight cost to the pure elixir flavours.. . woah, a delight to drink! .. and girls don't refer to the ref as a blind bastard!

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

i don't know if it has to do with the age or vintage year, but several of the other reviews pointed the the hard to find or non-existent port characteristics. I sampled the 2007 today, and that was absolutely not the case. i've never had the regular Lees Harvest to compare this to, so to me, the port/woody notes reallt stod out. knowing it was an English Barleywine makes you think much of the sweet notes in the nose & flavor were from the malt, but the fig/raisin/oak/grapes really were in the forefront...more so in the flavor than the aroma, which was a little muddled and confusing. The aroma was hoppier, and you could tell it was a beer, while the flavor, if not for the slight carbonation, could have very well been mistaken for a port wine. Hoppy-ish in the finish, but mostly a pleasantly sweet aftertaste. Full, thick body. The ridiculous amounts of sediment prevented us from enjoying the full bottle, so we poured and sampled 90% of it, then poured the rest...but all that yeast was a bit much, and somwhat of a mess. It was good enough to make we wamt to try all the others, but I'm in no rush to do so. I can't imagine someone liking this vintage if they don't care for port, but I can't imagine not liking it if you do like a good port.

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

Bottle: Poured a deep cloudy amber color ale with loads of floaters and a small head with minimal retention and light lacing. Aroma consists of sweet malt with some light dry fruits also discernable. Taste is also a mix between some sweet English style malt with some notes of dry fruits such as figs and raisins. I was expecting port to be more prominent but it was very subtle. Full body with limited filtration and some low to medium carbonation and no apparent alcohol. Well done overall even thought port was not overly discernable.

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

NorCal tasting Feb 07 - This might just be my least favorite out of the casked Harvest series. An incredibly sweet nose, honey like in aroma with undertones of dark fruits, the obvious port notes and some wood. Appearance is cloudy amber/orange in color, with a small head. Flavor was really overpoweringly sweet. It just didn't carry enough complexity to balance the sweetness, and I LOVE sweet beers. Some wood and dark fruits were buried under the sweet crush of malts. A nice beer, but my least favorite of the 4.

Aroma: 6 | Appearance: 8 | Mouthfeel: 10 | Flavor: 8 | Overall: 8

Pours with an amber body topped by a medium thick head with little lacing. It’s sweet, malty and woody with a nice caramel note and hints of port. Meidum bodied and smooth.

Aroma: 6 | Appearance: 6 | Mouthfeel: 4 | Flavor: 3 | Overall: 5

Pours a redish color with a average sized head. The aroma is strongly sweet and honey like. The mouthfeel is like molasses, and the taste is incredibly sweet and strong. I couldn't stand the stuff personally. It was like drinking beer laced honey.

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

The whiskey in the Lagavulin was subtle, but the port in this one is practically non-existant. This is basically the same sugary and alcoholic beer that the normal JW Lees Harvest Ale is. The clear red gold amber is topped by a small, fleeting white head. There might be the slightest bit of grapes in the finish of this beer. It’s a nice barley wine just like the original, but I’m not seeing the cask aging having added much to the beer.