Tuesday, February 06, 2007

Review: Highland Tasgall Ale

The Tasgall Ale was the second beer that Ben et al. from SevenPack.net sent over from the Highland Brewing Company (the first was the oatmeal porter).

Situated in Asheville, Highland is a mountain brewery, producing about 6500 barrels a year. They've been around since 1994, and still bottle their 22 oz. beers by hand. Looks like business for Highland has been good--they are now contract brewing in Maryland with Wild Goose Brewery (once Frederick Brewing Company, now under the ownership of Flying Dog).

Brewery: Highland Brewing Company
Brewery Location: Asheville (western North Carolina)
Beer:
Tasgall Ale
BJCP Style: 9E. Strong Scotch Ale
Serving:
Bottle

Appearance: dark maple, with a beautiful caramel latte head

Smell: chocolate and hops in nos, a warm malty roast character; overall, reminiscent of frothy hot chocolate

Taste: creamy mouthfeel, not as malty as aroma would suggest; I had trouble pulling out individual flavors--not the pronounced malt bite, hops, or peat that I had expected (although, as it warms, some of these flavors start to peek out), but smooth, smooth, smooth and very drinkable--probably too drinkable for the 8% ABV

Mouthfeel: full, creamy

Drinkability: easy to drink (too easy, given ABV?); it's probably more of a porter than a scotch ale, but this beer goes down so easily, it's hard to quibble with; along with the Endo IPA and the Duck-Rabbit Wee Heavy, one of my favorites from the group of NC beer

2 comments:

the said...

Damn, you got some good trades by the look of it.

Rick Sellers said...

Nice review. I appreciate seeing good effort put forth toward enhancing the overall appreciation of great beer. I haven't seen this beer before, but you make me want to find it. Well done.