Looking for the original Bar Towel blog? You can find it at www.thebartowel.com.

We have a trivia question in order to register to prevent bots. If you have any issues with answering, contact us at cass@bartowel.com for help.

Introducing Light Mode! If you would like a Bar Towel social experience that isn't the traditional blue, you can now select Light Mode. Go to the User Control Panel and then Board Preferences, and select "Day Drinking" (Light Mode) from the My Board Style drop-down menu. You can always switch back to "Night Drinking" (Dark Mode). Enjoy!

Ebulum Elderberry Black Ale

Contribute your own beer reviews and ratings of beers that are made or available in Ontario.

Moderators: Craig, Cass

Post Reply
BeerMonger
Posts: 193
Joined: Thu May 05, 2005 4:04 pm

Ebulum Elderberry Black Ale

Post by BeerMonger »

My wife, kind soul that she is purchased a variety of beers for me at Christmas including that 4? or 6? pack of various olde style beer from Scotland.

Tonight I sampled the Ebulum Elderberry Black Ale (6.5 on the Richter scale) introduced to Scotland by Welsh Druids in the 9th Century. This particular recipe of that style is from the 16th Century. The nose is not unlike the Dogfish Head brew (was it Raison D'Etre?) that had something odd as an ingredient (was it green raisins?-I don't recall). Anyhow, the taste is not unlike what I would imagine to be a combination of Hockley Dark and Guinness, lots of roasted notes but not overpowering. Quite tasty actually, there must have been a lot of drunken swine druids back in the day...

Anyone else try this stuff? If so, what did you think?

Steve Spong
Posts: 130
Joined: Sun Jun 19, 2005 6:52 pm
Location: East End Toronto

Post by Steve Spong »

I've always enjoyed the Scottish heritage beers, although I've come to regard some of them as a bit gimmicky (Alba Scots Pine?). I was always a fan of the Kelpie seaweed ale, which is the fifth beer that is referred to in the booklet in the box. With the exception of a few cases a few years ago, it was never packed with the set. You can get it at Premier, but I'm not that much of a fan. Nevertheless, the set is a worthwhile buy, and one of the few esoteric beers that the LCBO has continually carried over the years.
"All right, brain, I don't like you and you don't like me - so let's just do this and I'll get back to killing you with beer."

User avatar
skaghevn
Posts: 252
Joined: Wed Oct 24, 2001 8:00 pm

Post by skaghevn »

Never thought of the Alba as being particularly gimicky (or at least not more so than the rest of the set). The Heather used to be sold individually a few years back, and I did use to enjoy it then.

biegaman
Bar Fly
Posts: 574
Joined: Sun Nov 27, 2005 3:22 pm
Location: West Hill

Post by biegaman »

I too always enjoy the Scottish gift pack. In fact, I'd say some of those beers (most notibly the Ebulum) don't get as much respect as they should, perhaps others feel they are a bit gimicky too and for that reason don't rate them as high...?

Just my two cents, but I like em all!

Post Reply