Old Peculier Clone - One Year Later

It's fairly hard to believe that I've been brewing for over a year. I brewed my first solo batch in August of last year, the first week that Julia moved into our condo. It was actually the first thing I did here, we didn't even have any furniture yet. My first batch here was a clone of Old Peculier from Austin Homebrew Supply. With pretty much every batch I've done here, I've put a bottle aside to see how it stands up a year after it was made. This was the first batch for the time to run out on, and I was definitely anxious to see what had happened.

The initial smell of the beer was sweet and syrupy. It reminded me of the fact that it was made with a container of Lyle's Golden Syrup, a sugar from the UK. I also noted a bit of fruity smell and some phenolic quality, probably from a warm fermentation since this was before I had any sort of temperature control in place. I didn't detect any hop presence in the aroma.

The appearance of the beer was a reddish brown, very clear after a year of settling. It had about a half finger off white head. The head dissipated fairly quickly though, leaving only a dusting on top.

The taste initially had a caramel sweetness to it. Behind that I was immediately hit with some stale oxidation from sitting in the bottle so long. I guess I wasn't as careful as I could have been to keep post fermentation oxygen out of the beer. I thought I detected a little bit of chocolate flavor to it as well, but no real hop flavor. Despite that, there was still a fairly decent bitterness to the beer.

In the mouth the beer felt medium heavy, with a decent level of tingly carbonation. Since carbonation usually lowers over time, I suppose this means I probably overcarbonated it to start. I felt just a touch of warmth with the beer as well, even though it wasn't terribly strong to start with.

Overall, the flavor was fairly decent, but it didn't seem like it was as good as I remembered it being when it was fresh. Between some of the mistakes seem to have made while brewing it, the things that I have learned about brewing since, and the age of a beer that really wasn't that strong to begin with, I guess it was somewhat inevitable. I'll have to see how some of the other beers I've made since have held up, but I may decide that it's just not worth it to keep a bottle of normal gravity beer around for so long.

- Adam

Theakston Old Peculier

Even this beer's name suggests that you're getting something a bit different when you try it. Even though "Peculier" means particular, this beer is a bit odd when compared to pretty much everything I've tried so far. By no means is this a bad thing though, this beer was extremely enjoyable for me.

Old Peculier is a vintage ale, and has been made under this name since the 1890's. I'd been wanting to try this one for a while, and this trip turned out to be a perfect excuse.

Not really knowing what kind of glass this beer should go in, we poured it into our Pauwel Kwak glasses. It poured a deep brown with reddish highlights, and a small light tan head that dissipated fairly quickly. There was no visible lacing on the glass.

The aroma was hoppy with a hint of spice to me. Dan described it as a bit "sweet and sour" which I believe is an apt description. Honestly though, I was stumped by this beer. I really don't know how to describe the aroma. It's very far from anything I'm used to.

The taste was fairly hard to describe as well. There were coffee and caramel flavors. A slight amount of bitterness was present, but it wasn't overwhelming or unpleasent. All in all, it was very rich, complex, and well rounded. There was a fair bit of warmth going down too.

The mouth feel was kind of thick and not too carbonated. However, there was still a good tingle on the tounge from the carbonation, and was not flat at all.

I still don't know how I feel about the drinkability of this beer. My initial reaction was that it was something to savor and enjoy, possibly on it's own. I also said that I couldn't see myself drinking many of these in one sitting. Now though, I wonder if it's because the flavor just takes a little getting used to. I could see this being a great beer for a cold winter day.

-Adam