Harviestoun Ola Dubh 16 Year

Been a while since we ventured to Scotland for anything non-Brewdog.

Harviestoun however have put together a range to date that belies their small stature, beers of strong flavour and character throughout. This is a stout based on the excellent Old Engine Oil (apparently the name even translates to 'black oil') aged in 16 year old whiskey barrels from an award winning local distillery. There's a whole range of these at varying ages .. would be very interesting to do a vertical tasting on the range one day.

As it is this is indeed oily but at the same time very approachable. It's got a balanced mocha sort of nose with dark chocolate and coffee competing at equal measure, plus that hazy undefinable barrel complexity you get from extended exposure to the wooden residuals. Very flat delivery is on target for the style and allows you to really enjoy the slick alcohol back notes. It's smooth this and feels like it has lost some of the biting bitterness that Old Engine Oil leaves you with.

A mellow, settled and reassuring beer deep with complexity but also restrained in terms of booze and spirit notes. Very good indeed. 8.5

Harviestoun Mr Sno'balls

Mr Sno'balls, a wintery bitter from the thus far impressive crew at Harviestoun.

This one pours pretty sedate and flat as you can see with low aeration, but it is a nice light cola hue. The flavour profile is dominated by the pale and crystal malts with a bit of caramel character and just slight bittering hops. The roasty barley character is quite pleasant and lifts this above some others that are all just caramel and nothing else.

While they're not perhaps the most exciting beers, I don't mind beers in this vein from time to time. They can be a pretty comforting drop to nurse over some time as they take well to being flat and warm. The only real issue I have with this one is the label - 'Crisp' yeah, 'Caramel' yeah, 'Citrus' ..what? Surely there were other words that started with 'C' you could have used? 7.0

Harviestoun Bitter & Twisted

I was oddly not looking forward to this one despite loving Harviestoun's first one.. a 4.2% blond beer doesn't usually set my world alight.

What a pleasant surprise then when this too turned out to be an excellent beer. Again this is true to the label in an impressive display of scottish truth in advertising: it is indeed zesty, spicy, and

The key is in the balance here - malt melds beautifully with the zingy bitterness. It's very well crafted. And very gently aerated as a deliberate measure to boot.

Looking forward to some further testing of this one, particularly given the attractive price point. 8.0

Harviestoun Old Engine Oil Porter

I'm a solid and evergrowing fan of dark beers and particularly stouts and porters, so when I first spotted this one at the local first choice for a pretty reasonable fee I felt I had to give it a go despite the somewhat worrying label.

No, not the guinness. More the fact that it calls itself 'Old Engine Oil', with a picture of a car, and then uses its precious first few descriptive words on 'Viscous', 'Bittersweet', and 'Dark'. Well well well. I've got a lot of respect for the advertising angle but was well prepared for it to be a terrible beer.

Out of the bottle this is slick, you feel you can see it nearly stick to the glass. There's a lovely iced coffee coloured head on a solid deep black cola coloured body, though happily the taste doesn't conform.

Indeed, dark roasted chocolate dominates nose and body, bittersweet and lingering throughout. There's an edge of toffee but it's not oversweet. Mouthfeel is heavy-ish but far from troublesomely so, and the light aeration also suits.

I dig this beer greatly. It's a beautifully balanced example of the porter style and warrants a 9.0 from me. A carton for $65? Yes please and my new standard fridge beer for that money.