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Last night’s tasting at Nikki’s was English beers. There was a nice selection of a few porters, a strong ale, an IPA, and 3 barleywines.

They started me off with Burton Bridge’s IPA. This was a nice smooth easy drinking IPA, which is something you don’t usually hear about IPA’s, but remember, these are English beers. Super hops flavors aren’t something common in English beers. The guy doing the tasting said this is the original IPA (they were originally brewed a bit stronger and with more hops to make the journey to India and then across the Atlantic). I’ll probably pick up a bottle of this next week.

Next was Old Slug Porter. I like American Porters because they have a lot of flavor. This was pretty weak in flavor if you ask me, but it had a little roasted quality and was very malty and light in body. The same goes for Old Flag porter, which was next, though that one had more flavor to it, but it was still lighter in body than I expected. The last porter was JW Lees Manchester Star strong porter. This one was more like what I expected. Lots of roasted malt character.

After the porters was JW Lees Moonraker Ale, an English Strong Ale. This was much sweeter with a bit of a fruity quality to it. It was very tasty and had a nice body to it.

Now the barleywines. They were all JW Less Harvest Ales (Lagavulin Whisky Cask aged, Calvados Cask aged, and Sherry Cask aged). They all had the same sweetness (after all, it’s the same beer), but they each had a different characteristic lent by the various barrels in which they were aged. The Lagavulin aged one had a slightly smoky flavor to it, the Sherry one had a slightly different taste (I’ve never had Sherry before), and the Calvados (which is an Apple Brandy) had a slight apple flavor to it. They all make great dessert beers and are great as an apertif. I have a bottle of the Lagavulin aged one here that I’ll have to try at some point.

And in true Nikki’s fashion, Mike chilled a bottle of Stone’s Old Guardian Barleywine for us to try.  It was good, though hoppier than I expected.  I bought a bottle and it’s sitting in my “cellar”.  I’ll have to find a night when I want to get drunk because Susan won’t like it.  I may just let it sit there until next year when some of the hops have worn down a bit.