Three very special vintage ales in a presentation easy carry cardboard box.

Wimbledon Brewery XXXK Bottled 2017,2019, 2025 Vintages

Brewing and Tasting Notes September 2025

There are no brewing records from the original Wimbledon Brewery which burnt down in 1889, however, there is a price list with the beers the brewery was producing at that time. The premium of these beers was their XXXK.

From the foundation of the current Wimbledon Brewery in 2015 we had envisaged brewing this classic style as a flagship beer. Derek Prentice, our Master Brewery, put together the brewing recipe and procedures to produce our current XXXK’s from his career at Truman’s, Young’s and Fuller’s.

2017 XXXK

Brewing

Our first XXXK was brewed using a parti-gyle system (producing 2 or more beers from a single  grist) This enabled us to just use the first strong wort for the XXXK with the second weaker wort producing our XK Mild Ale which had also featured on the original Wimbledon brewery price list.

The malt grist comprised of 78% Maris Otter Pale Ale malt, 2% Cara Gold malt and 20% No1 invert brewing syrup, the hop grist had the traditional heritage varieties of Fuggles and Goldings.

Primary fermentation was with an Ale yeast followed by a 3 month warm maturation and conditioning period. As this was our first brew we transferred approximately 1/3 of this brew into ex Speyside Whisky wood casks for aging and future blending another 1/3 was racked straight into metal casks and the last 1/3 was hand bottled with a Krausen addition (freshly fermenting wort and yeast) to enable the final bottle conditioning. This final bottle conditioning took a little longer that we expected but got there in the end and was released 6 months after bottling.

2019 XXXK

Brewing

Our second iteration of our XXXK we used the same parti-gyling method as for the 2017 and again produced an XK mild. On this occasion though and following a traditional practice of blending stored or aged beers, a ‘Stock’ ale with a younger a ‘Running’ beer we added the 2 year old Whisky cask aged beers to the 2019 beer in maturation. We agreed that the bottling would be contracted out which required a greater volume of the beer than for the 2017 and bottled with a lower level of bottle conditioning required. We were also having good sales of the metal casks so the remainder of this beer was racked into metal casks

2023 XXXK

Brewing

We had been very happy with the brewing of both the previous XXXK’s so again we stuck to the same brewing grists and procedures. As with all natural products there are seasonal variations and differences on this occasion a very strong fermentation produced a whopping 12.5% ABV brew.

We also liked the additional characteristics to the aroma and palate that the ‘Stock’ wood cask aged beer had brought to the bottled 2019 XXXK, the demand for our metal casks continued particularly for beer festivals so on this occasion we packaged half of the brew into metal casks and the other half was split into Armagnac and Rum wood casks to provide future ‘Stock’ales for blending. Consequently, we do not have this vintage in bottle but there are some metal casks still available!

2025 XXXK

Brewing

Using the philosophy ‘ if it aint broke don’t fix it’ we stuck to the same grist and brewing procedure as in previous brews we did make one change though with the accompanying brew which we made a light bitter rather than a dark mild, one of the additional benefits of parti-gyling ! Following the primary brews fermentation and maturation we blended in the 2 year old Armagnac wood aged beer. This was then packaged into cask, keg and bottle.

Brewer's brief tasting notes September 2025

Strong ales and barley wines share many similarities with wines particularly red wines with ageing in bottle, they will alter in palate over time sometimes for the best and sometimes not and even on occasions getting better after not being so good! We were pleased to note that all 3 Vintages were still sound with no evident signs of infection, oxidative staling or just unpleasant!

Our very brief notes at a recent tasting of the 3 bottled XXXK vintages  

Aroma                  Fresh, stone fruits, sweet tobacco, oaky white wine, vanilla

Palate                  Light fruit cake, vanilla, spicy orange, full.

After Palate       alcohol warming, cognac spirit, slight liquorice, slight hop bitterness  

Aroma                  Vanilla, slight solvent, slight woody, clementine.

Palate                  Very full sl. syrupy mouthfeel, Dundee cake and prunes, wood and whisky.

After palate       Lingering fullness, rich malt with minimal bitterness

Aroma                  Malty, Caramel, slight chocolate, prune, raisin notes.

Palate                  Very spritzy, malty full, plums and burnt orange, chocolate.

After Palate       Soft finish nice mouthfeel slight caramel.