Gale's Conquest Ale Masterbrew

A 2001 Vintage bottle that I've had laying around in my "cellar" for a while. Seeing that I'm flying out on Monday to work on a Navy ship while it's underway for a week or two, I figure I'll make up that time now by drinking some of my better beers now! While I'm not sure if I would call this a "Master Brew", and I'm not sure if it's worth the price for only 9oz of beer, Gale's Conquest Brew is still interesting.

The sample I had was well-corked, and was able to pull it out without destroying the cork, poking cork fragments into the beer, or (worst of all) having to restort in pushing the cork into the beer to get the beer out of the bottle (all things I've had to do with other Gale's ales...).

Distinct alcohol prescence from the first wiff of the aroma, through the first sip of the beer, all the way through to the end of the bottle. This alcohol omnipresence can be a bit disspiriting after a while, but still isn't too distracting.

Classic fruit-and-berry flavor profile, that seems to be the norm for many English barleywine-ish beers. Nothing too complex, but then again, surely this isn't simply Bass kicked up a notch, either!

While overall I don't have a lot to say that's overtly positive about this (truth is that I was a touch disappointed), at the same time I don't have many negative things to say about this. Not really worth the price, IMO, but may be worth grabbing for long(er)-term cellaring.
//TB