Robinson’s Old Tom : An Old Ale is a tricky style to pin down. At its simplest it is an aged beer, sometimes mixed with a younger beer, and often has an oaky, wine quality. It can be close in style to a barley wine, but is more complex than that. Old Tom is a famous Old Ale, its initial production going back to an unknown date around the start of the 1900’s. The cat on the label is Old Tom himself, the Robinson’s original brewery cat. This is not a big selling beer, but it is hugely respected, winning Supreme Champion at the CAMRA Winter Beers 2000 festival. These days the brewery calls Old Tom a Barley Wine as Old Ale seems to have slipped out of fashion.
Not everyone likes it, Nuffield found it a “flat and more unpleasant blend of ale, barley wine and bitter”, but TrappistAlesRule “loved the sweet/acidic interplay.”
Less assertive than most beers of this strength, Old Tom will yield up its treasures to those who look for something more interesting than simple strength.