Adnams Broadside Strong Original

500 mL bottle. (bb 11 June 09). Copper brown with a beautiful beige head. Aroma is candied fruit, prunes, wild berries, and toffee. Flavour is sweetish malt, with a nice bitter finish. Not nearly as complex as the aroma. Body fills out as the beer warms. Fairly heavily carbonated. Not bad.

Bottle from the LCBO- Deep chestnut pour unleashed a frothy mocha cap leaving pretty spiderweb lace. The aroma that I was first greeted with was caramel and then molasses. Dark fruits (plum, prune) follow with a bit of char and fruitcake. Tastes of sweet fruitcake and sugary nutty malts. Prune and dark plum come in and add more sweetness which is semi balanced by some metallic hops. Problem is, I hate the taste of fruitcake. This is not really good.

(Bottle, Monks Cafe, Stockholm, 15 Sep 2008) Dark reddish brown colour with frothy, beige head. Malty nose with dark fruit, wild berries, blood oranges and caramel. Malty, fruity taste with dark fruit, caramel, blood oranges and generous doses of earthy, orangey hops in a fairly bitter finish. Everything backed up by a solid, chewy malt foundation. Above medium body. Superb and warming beer.

One of the most nice tasting beers i’ve ever had a mixture of hops fruit and malt, it tastes quite sweet but every mouthful is good.

500mL bottle from the LCBO. Pours a very dark ruby with a large beige head. Nice looking one. Aroma: Not a whole lot going on in the nose from this one. Some OK caramalt, maybe a hint of some herbal hops. Some toffee, almost like a good but muted Dopplebock. What is there is nice (it improves dramatically as it warms). Flavour: Starts out very nicely with a wave of sweet British malts, then flows well into some very dry hops, with a touch of alcohol and a very dry finish/aftertaste. I was surprised by the dry hop character to the flavour given the aroma. Medium mouthfeel with a tolerable level of carbonation for the style. Sticky and sweet fruity malt elements become more apparent in the aftertaste to add some decent complexity. Quite a tasty one, with some aspects I have never come across before in an ESA. Seems a lot stronger than 6.3% abv.

500 ml bottle - pours an absolutely beautiful buckwheat honey shade with a healthy, billowy tan head that lasts for the entire pint and leaves extraordinarily thick lacing. Aroma fairly subdued at the beginning, but as the beer warms, some subtle aromas of prune juice, currants and plum jam come out, along with a bit of yeast, and some alcohol as well. Flavour is where the beer really shines, with a complex bouquet of dark fruits mingling with a slightly woody hop presence and a hint of treacle. Warming alcohol at the back of the throat. A superb beer for these cooler days and nights. A real treat to be getting back to these types after a long summer of lighter brews.

Picked this up at LCBO, and pretty happy I did. Similar to belhavens wee heavy in some ways but not quit as good. The aroma is pretty a straight forward malty English ale, toffee, caramel, almond all the malty good stuff. The Flavour is a pretty strong reflection of that, lots of malty goodness to be had in this beer, toffee, caramel, honey, almond, but with a surprising light bitterness at the end, works well in my opinion. The palate is pretty decent, creamy fizzy mouth feel, dry finish, really decent. Will buy this again, but between wee heavy and this, wee heavy still wins.

500 ml bottle from the LCBO. pours beautiful dark red with a rocky tan head that lingers and laces. the aroma is muted but what there is typically malt forward english ale. initially you think the flavours will be similar because they start off very malty but then there is a huge bitter finish. the finish really clashes with the rest of the brew. not bad but id rather a wellington iron duke if i feel like an ESA.