Ola Dubh Special Reserve 16 - Harviestoun Brewery, Alva

Ola Dubh is a beer that's been on my bucket list for a while. Starting at about $4 for a 12 ounce bottle, the barrier to entry was something I never felt I needed to overcome right away. At least, that's how I felt up until last weekend when I had Founders Black Biscuit at a rare beer tapping. I really, really, really enjoyed the Black Biscuit, so much so that I drank four glasses of it before the keg blew. I've had a few beers like it, but there was something about that beer that made it exceptional. I forgot what that something special was after my second glass though... What I do remember is that someone suggested the Ola Dubh Special Reserve to me as a similar beer. On the way home that night I picked up this bottle of Ola Dubh 16.

There's a lot of pomp on this bottle... It comes in a foil coiled 12 ounce longneck with a little info card dangling from the base of the bottleneck. The branding is distinctly Harviestoun, with their little mouse on the label and the card. The label identifies this as the middle tier in the Ola Dubh Special Reserve series, the 16. The 16 refers to the Highland Park Scotch Whisky barrels that were used to age this beer. Those barrels held 16 year old single malt whisky, then they were filled with this Old Ale for a period of time which is curiously absent from the info card... At any rate, this packaging goes out of its way to tell you this is a beer that's been aged in 16 year old Whisky barrels, or at least barrels that held 16 year old Whisky... you can only fit so much info on one of these cards.

This beer pours a dark black color and settles even darker. It develops a generous tan head that hangs around for quite a while. There doesn't seem to be much aroma escaping this beer even when I poured it with a little vigor to get some air to into it. What little aroma I got was absolutely amazing. The Ola Dubh 16 smells like a warm raisin or prune that's been slice in half and dipped in a shallow bath of milk chocolate. Suspiciously absent from the aroma however, was the Whisky barrel aging... I expected to pick up on the Whisky right away, but this wasn't the case.

The flavor of the Ola Dubh followed the aroma rather closely. Flavors are much more noticeable but they aren't extreme and they don't dominate your taste buds. The first thing you notice when you take a sip of this beer is that it's an Old Ale, no matter how much it looks like a Stout, it's definitely an Old Ale. There is a little roasted malt flavor in this beer but it's nowhere near the levels you'd find in a Stout. The flavor profile here is... well, I want to call it delicate but that makes it sound fragile... let's go with soft. There is a nice balance of chocolate, milk, biscuit and raisin flavor that makes this beer taste like a blend of all of those component, where nothing is too strong, too harsh or too distracting to prevent you from enjoying every drop of this beer.

That's all great, but this is a beer that has told me at least three times on it's label that it's aged in 16 year old Scotch Whisky barrels. Where's the Whisky flavor? That's a good question, and I'd like to know the answer. I feel a little cheated that this beer doesn't have a more obvious barrel aged flavor, but at the same time I think a noticeable level of oak flavor might throw off that flavor balance. I'm willing to overlook the missing barrel aged flavor since the rest of the beer is so good.

If you are like me and have been overlooking the Harviestoun Special Reserve series, I'd tell you to go for it. The price is a little higher but the quality of the beer is worth the price at the register. I'm looking forward to trying the rest of the series to see how the different ages of the Whisky barrels affects the flavor of the beer.