Vintage Ale
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Vintage Ale
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Vintage Ale The Collingwood Brewery
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From:
The Collingwood Brewery
Ontario , Canada
Style:
American Strong Ale
ABV:
6.9%
Score:
85
Avg:
3.7 | pDev: 9.46%
Reviews:
4
Ratings:
12
Status:
Retired
Rated:
Dec 31, 2016
Added:
Dec 30, 2014
Wants:
0
Gots:
0
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Can from the lcbo for around $3.25.
Rated: 3.63 by peensteen from Canada (ON) Dec 20, 2016
Rated: 3.25 by Pmicdee from Canada (ON) Nov 29, 2016
473 mL can from the LCBO; dated Sept 22 2016 and served slightly chilled. This can is from the 2016 run, but I'm putting my review here anyway - I see no reason why this beer should require a unique database entry for each individual "vintage". I mean, they didn't even bother putting a "2016" on this year's label, and there aren't any indications that the recipe is being adjusted from year to year.
Pours a clouded orange-amber colour, fitted with one finger of foamy, creamy-looking, off white-tinged head. It's retention is respectable, seeping off steadily over the next 5-6 minutes, depositing a fine curtain of lace as it recedes away to a frothy collar and smooth cap. Light toffee, caramel and honey sweetness on the nose, with bready, biscuity malts and hints of apricot, counterbalanced by notes of earthy, leafy, somewhat floral hops. Enticing aroma; about what I would expect from a strong ale.
A damn tasty brew, but also a fairly straightforward one that comes off as a little simplistic, particularly for this style. The wildflower honey provides constant, baseline level of sweetness that is occasionally increased additively by the presence of toffee, caramelized sugar and those toasty, bready malts. Fruity hints of apricot and perhaps apple come through at the midpoint, followed by marmalade and orange-grapefruit citrus as the hops really start to take control of the flavour profile. Finishes with grassy, leafy hops and and an earthy, floral bitterness that clings to the palate, lasting well into the aftertaste of each sip. Medium in body, with rather soft carbonation which gives this strong ale a smooth, slick, somewhat limp mouthfeel. The alcohol is barely perceptible, which could make this a dangerous beer - it has the drinkability of your typical ESB in my opinion, and is appealing enough to be consumed in multiples.
Final Grade: 3.87, a worthy B+. While I certainly enjoyed this beer, the fact of the matter is that when you compare it to the heavyweights of this style (e.g. the Bastard beers), Collingwood's Vintage Harvest Ale is comparatively quite mellow, subdued and balanced. I'm really just looking for something a bit more aggressive, and this beer - despite being well-constructed - is too polite. On the other hand, if you take this beer to be a hybrid somewhere between an English strong ale and an American one - with the hops decidedly on the latter end of that spectrum - then it actually becomes pretty easy to appreciate. I'll buy another one when I have the opportunity, but it doesn't strike me as something worth cellaring for any length of time.
Rated: 3.88 by RedAleMan from Canada (ON) Nov 12, 2016
Rated: 4.02 by ikidunot from Canada (ON) Aug 23, 2016
Rated: 2.93 by Coronaeus from Canada (ON) Apr 09, 2016
Rated: 3.44 by Molson2000 from Canada (ON) Mar 04, 2016
Rated: 3.76 by Ultrarunner100 from Canada (ON) Feb 25, 2016
Rated: 4.08 by MattCampbell from Canada (ON) Feb 06, 2016
Rated: 4 by fortyfield from Canada (ON) Jan 22, 2016
750 ml bomber served at cellar temperature into a pint glass. Purchased from the LCBO for somewhere around $8 CDN.
Appearance - this vintage ale pours a slightly cloudy pale orange coloured beer. Nice rocky two fingers of super frothy white head are poured with excellent head retention. Lots of lively carbonation rises to the top of the beer too. Plenty of sticky lacing left behind as well.
Smell - lots of grainy aromas, some light herbal scents and a touch of honey as well. There's a slight sharpness that almost metallic in nature that comes through as well.
Taste - plenty of bitterness although not excessively so. Some dank flavours that help me think of fall. Some graininess lingers in the background and a steady caramel malt bill is subtle. Some spicy aspects thrown in for good measure. The bitterness is pervasive, but doesn't stand out. Could use a touch of sweetness to provide a great contrast.
Mouthfeel - smooth, well carbonated and a reasonably light body, certainly easy to drink and enjoying the entire bomber won't be a hassle.
Overall - a reasonably tasty and well crafted seasonal ale, that could use just a little more punch, maybe more bitterness maybe something else in the aroma. Still enjoyable and not a chore to drink, I might have to pick up another bottle before this leaves shelves for another year.
Update September 21, 2017. Appears to now be branded as Whitney's Vintage (Wet Hopped Ale). In cans and sold for $3.50. Metallic scents dialed back and otherwise still a well rounded beer. Slight score increase.
Rated: 4.35 by DaPan from Canada (ON) Nov 15, 2015
750ml bottle into snifter. a "harvest ale" brewed with organic fresh hops from bighead hops in meaford, ontario
a: slightly hazy vibrant orange with bone-hued head. very nice
s: quite grassy and floral with peach aromas. cracker & bread aromas. a bit of alcohol. subdued overall but still smells good and fruity
t: floral peach up front which doesn't last long at all, leading into a crackery, alcoholic malt profile. resiny, bitter finish
m: good medium body but the carbonation is prickly. medium, almost medium-plus bitterness at the end
o: maybe my expectations are unreasonable, but i would have liked a lot more hop presence given that this is brewed with fresh hops. the hop flavour profile is certainly unconventional but there was nothing bad about it -- i was just hoping it would stick around for more than 3 seconds. also, i find the bitterness to be a bit high considering the malt in here isn't very sweet, even though the label says that wildflower honey is added. not a horrible beer but i don't want to have the rest of this bottle
Rated: 3.58 by liamt07 from Canada (ON) Nov 05, 2015
poured into snifter from Bomber. First of all this is a Great looking golden copper color with a nice white head. Beautiful lacing hugs the sides of the glass like a foamy curtain. Beautiful.
At fridge temp not a lot of nose but after 10 min at room temp the honey and malts come out. Nice sweetness. On sides of tounge and smooth bitter finish that fades into the local malts nicely. Bighead hops sourced locally add nicely without overpowering.
Overall nice effort and worth a revisit after a few months.
Beer rating:
85 out of
100 with
16 ratings
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by Karl S Updated on December 28, 2021
Hey, so it’s in here somewhere. Aha. Here it is. Nine year old Trader Joe’s vintage ale and hmm, six years outta date. Still good?
Every year trader Joe’s brew a vintage ale, the beer is a Dark Belgian Ale that differs slightly from year to year. It’s brewed under contract by uni-brew in Quebec, Canada. Now the bottle claims it’s brewed “ on Lees .”
And what the heck is on Lees? Well, that’s commonly a wine making term, but a effectively just means it’s bottled conditioned .
Trader Joes recommend aging the beer up to three years and adding a best before date that expires at that point.
So, well, how does a beer fair that six years after that?
I’ve bought a 2021 bottle. So let’s compare that to the 2012 vintage. To try these two beers I have assembled esteemed tasting panel. So we have Norm from well, many different beer tastings, right.
And then Carl, Carl, you’re a member of the Ghana Ale Society? That’s right. So you know, a thing or two about brewing them. And we’ve been talking about doing a tasting for well a long time, right?
Too long, too long. Yeah. I think back in the old bedsheet brick wall days.
Obviously I’ve been planning this for the last nine years. Absolutely not the case that I just found this at the back of the cupboard. And this is new 2021 and this is nine years old, but they are bottle conditioned, but it does have a best before date.
And I didn’t tell either of you guys this ahead of this, but I’m afraid I can see it. Yes. It expired in 2015. So six years expired.
All right. Is there a recommended, uh, temperature, uh, for, for serving these?
Yes, there is around 53 degrees. Okay. I’ve had these just sat out of the fridge of about an hour. Carl, did you want to try, uh, opening this guy?
Who we can give it a go. You could, you could feel this one immediately, as soon as they start. Oh, we’re we’re we’re gonna need, we’re gonna need a new bottle opener. Never inviting Carl back again….
We’ll get the bottom. Yep. There we go. All right. Well done. Not even any cork bits, well done. Well done. We should all be able to get a good tasting outta that.
All right. So carbination wise, they are both carbonated. They are, but clearly one more than the other.
I wanna say that the new one seems a tad brighter.
Okay. Well, let’s see if we can get anything just on the aroma. Sure. Um, for this.
Oh man. Completely different. Oh, totally different. Completely different beer. Get a lot of raisin on the older one.
Raisin is spot on, on this one. Yeah. Really? On, on the older one, raisin is spot on now I’m assuming that these beers have the same mash bill and everything despite being, you know, so far apart?
Each year is slightly different, but very similar mm-hmm. So this beer should be sort of like a, a Belgian quad style . Mm-hmm, just a it on the darker side from that I think. Okay. So let’s try the 2021 the new beer first.
Okay. So we can sort of see how it’s supposed to taste. Okay. That’s a good call.
Very carbonated. Like bubbles taste. A lot of mouths feel, to lot of mouth feel. Yeah. The, the flavors are fairly mellow on the new one. They really are. I would like to say surprisingly mellow, definitely a little, a little Boozey a little heavy, but I was based off the nose, even expecting more of like a acidic kind of pop to it.
Right. The home brew challenge legal department would like to remind you that, uh, drinking the next beer is at your own risk. That being said, should we get this a try? I think we should give it to go. Yep.
A completely different experience. Mm-hmm
Yes. Okay. So let’s break this down. Okay. Way less carbonation, way less. I think it’s delicious to be honest, it is very good. Smooth.
It’s more what I was expecting, not a beer you’re gonna chug, but sipper, especially as it warms up, it’s delicious.
But it is the, the, the lack of carbonation makes the drinking experience of this one so much different than this one. This is this I know isn’t planned, but I’m going to change things up here a little bit. If you don’t mind.
Could we maybe get a third glass and combine the two and see what a mix of the old one and the new one would taste like? So I’m gonna pour a little bit of this in there. Oh man. I’m gonna say the sum is greater than the parts.
It’s amazing that the best of this one and the best of this one is what you get here. That they’re not, there’s no conflict between the two. Um, you don’t lose anything from either one either.
I think that’s fantastic. And it tastes so much fresher doesn’t it? Yes. Yeah.
Yeah. That’s a good, that’s a good mix. Maybe aging them for three years would be the optimal, like it says on the bottle. But if you happen to find one, lying around, mix it with a new one and you have got a delicious beer.
And the best by date – completely ignore that. If you find, if you find one in the back of the closet, somewhere in the best by date’s gone by some, I think, I think you can, you can safely enjoy that beer without too much concern.
Lead marketer, brewer, dad, and husband. Pretty much an all-round awesome guy.
You know it’s the holiday drinking season when Traders releases their Vintage Ale. Since 2005 Trader Joe’s has contract with a brewery, in this case a Canadian brewery called Unibroue to brew a special beer for the holiday season. The past couple of years have been about the same, a heavy dark ale in a 750ml bottle with a cork and a wire cap like a Belgian style beer.
Welcome to Club Trader Joe’s! We are a huge fans of Trader Joe’s. We have been reviewing Trader Joe’s products for over 10 years unbiased and fairly. We are not affiliated with Trader Joe’s in any way.
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