January 25, 2001 -- I felt a bit like a guest in my own home when a couple of friends, Gary Gillman and Josh Oakes, dropped by recently for a weeknight KTT. The reason for this 'visitor' status was that Gary and Josh brought the lion's share of the beer. All I had to do was chip in a couple of interesting brews to round out the selection and provided the glassware.

We began with an interesting Belgian beer called Blonde d'Oleye, from the Brasserie Artisanale d'Oleye in Waremme. A hazy, lightish gold organic brew, it offers a very spicy nose and a similarly spiced body, with what I thought were predominantly coriander notes showing through. A slight sharpness in the finish detracts from the flavour somewhat, but overall I thought this was yet another encouraging sign that organic beer has finally hit its stride.

Next in line was the new beer from New Belgium Brewing of Fort Collins, Colorado. Called BiŠre de Mars, it was very much enjoyed by both Gary and Josh, with Gary praising its spicy, lemony character. For what I thought, you'll have to visit the Living in Style section of playboy.com, where I will have a full review appearing in the coming weeks.

The Copper Shield from Warren, Michigan's Dragonmead Brewery followed the new Belgium brew, and although I didn't remember the style of the unlabelled bottle, after tasting I guessed that it was a barley wine. And a pretty good one at that, with solid complexity, a nice appley nose, some significant hop in the second half and a cocoa-ish finish. It was followed by a disappointingly spoiled BiŠre Darbyste from the Brasserie de Blaugies of Dour, Belgium. Tim Webb gives this fig-flavoured wheat beer a good rating, so it was truly a shame to find that it had gone off.

The middle round of the tasting featured a pair of tasty, 6% alcohol English ales: Rudolph's Revenge Winter Ale from the Cropton Brewery in the village of the same name and Firebox from the RCH Brewery of Avon. The former impressed me more with its nutty (roasted chestnut) and chocolate body and smooth mouthfeel, while the latter is a thinner and slightly confused ale with some enjoyable fruitiness and a moderately bitter finish. Both were miles ahead of the unidimensional Newcastle Star, a very sweet and caramelly, 7.5% alcohol ale from the folks who bring you Newcastle Brown.

Having toyed with strong beer for the first two rounds, we got serious in the finale. Leading this pack was the 8% Lion Stout from the Ceylon Brewery of Sri Lanka, a dynamite brew with loads of character and an almost impossibly smooth body. A nice complexity featuring notes of licorice candy, light fruit and roast, apple skin, plum and faintly sweetened coffee makes this an ale I would definitely like to encounter more often.

A trio of strong ales finished things off, all from England. In the oddest little 275 ml can (yes, a barley wine in a can!) was the Whitbread Gold Label, a 10% alcohol beer with a mellow character more suited to an ale half its strength. The footnote on my tasting sheet says it all --"a cream ale of a barley wine."

The Samuel Smith Strong Golden Barley Wine offered far more flavour, but much of it seemed rather undeveloped. While the start was soft and rounded, the phenolic nose and calvados-esque body of this 10.2% alcohol ale spoke to me of a need for more aging time. Such was not necessarily true for the Millennium Ale from King & Barnes, though. A wonderfully rounded ale with great complexity on the nose (raisin, date, nutmeg, tobacco) and only slightly less in the body (lightly roasty malt, chocolate, plum, a hint of smokiness), this is a splendidly drinkable beer right now. I suspect, however, that anyone with a bottle or two to spare the cellar will enjoy it as much or most probably more several years down the road.

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