Tonight I opened up the bottle of Theakston Old Peculier that I picked up from Belmont Station when we were in Portland earlier this month. Old Peculier is an old ale style of beer that weighs in at 5.6% alcohol by volume—not overly strong, lending itself to being a good session beer.

Appearance: Dark, murky brown. Not quite as dark as a porter, but much darker than a typical brown ale.

Smell: Some molasses, some licorice… some dark malt. Overall, rather neutral.

Taste: Clean, neutral. Not real dark, as you’d expect from its appearance. Not overly sweet. I don’t get a real hop character from it, more of an herbal/heathery essence. Somewhat mild and a little smokey.

Mouthfeel: "Buttery" was the first thing that came to mind. A bit fizzy. Kind of an oily smokiness. Thin but not watery.

Over on BeerAdvocate they rate it 87, with 98% approval. On RateBeer it scores 3.66 out of 5 and is in their 91st percentile overall.

A pretty decent beer, though I did find it a bit… peculier (rim-shot!): generally its neutrality was a bit surprising for the style and how dark it was. But a good session beer, as I mentioned. I bet it would really shine on a nitro tap…