3.4 AROMA 7/10 APPEARANCE 3/5 TASTE 7/10 PALATE 3/5 OVERALL 14/20
Bottled A mid brown coloured beer with a short lived head. Fairly full in the nose with fruit and caramel. Nice fruity maltiness in the mouthwith an unfortunate cardboard undertone. In spite of that pretty decent sweetness.
3.5 AROMA 7/10 APPEARANCE 4/5 TASTE 8/10 PALATE 5/5 OVERALL 11/20
4.7% amber colour with a thin head, malty aroma, malty caramel bitter taste with some hops, a very nice beer.
3.4 AROMA 6/10 APPEARANCE 4/5 TASTE 6/10 PALATE 4/5 OVERALL 14/20
I wasn’t looking for too much from this but it’s actually rather good! Good malty nose and palate, quite full bodied, with a generous helping of hops, the result is a well balanced brew, the finish is initially malty but a hoppy fruitiness puts in an appearance and hangs about to the end. Nice beer!
2.8 AROMA 6/10 APPEARANCE 3/5 TASTE 5/10 PALATE 3/5 OVERALL 11/20
Bottle. Copper coloured with a thin head. Aromas are weetabix malts with tea. Spicy and earthy with some herbal and metal notes. Flavours are sweet malts with citrus and some woody notes. Raisins and tea with a dry finish. OK.
2.6 AROMA 5/10 APPEARANCE 2/5 TASTE 6/10 PALATE 3/5 OVERALL 10/20
Bottle, from Grimsby Aldi. Copper coloured with a thin shortlived white head and low condition. Muted malt sweetness in the nose, nutty sweet maltiness in the mouth and a short flowery hoppiness initially in the finish before a return of the nutty malt
2.5 AROMA 4/10 APPEARANCE 4/5 TASTE 5/10 PALATE 3/5 OVERALL 9/20
Bottled, 500ml, pasteurised from Aldi, Banbury. Reddish copper with white head, quite pretty. I get the boiled vegetable aroma, boiled sprouts for Sunday lunch type thing, then just a plain, dry malted body of relatively little interest. Pretty bland with just hints of boiled hop. Over cooked in my opinion.
2.6 AROMA 3/10 APPEARANCE 3/5 TASTE 3/10 PALATE 3/5 OVERALL 14/20
500ml bottle from Aldi. I thought this would be the same as the XXXB, but the ingredients appear to be different, as is the abv, and this does strike me as rather more hopped than the XXXB. It’s an old fashioned, hop soaked bitter. Good base malt - a little too clean due to the filtering, with some barley sugar coming in over the orange fruit that is suggestive of the pasteurising. A very dry beer, even though there are sweet flavours. It’s a grown up beer - the sort I really didn’t like when younger, and it does show the bittering qualities of English hops, though - sadly - not the more interesting fragrance qualities. It’s not a bad brew, one of the better pasteurised British bitters, the robustness of the style concealing many of the processing flaws. But it’s not to my taste - I am not overly keen on plain, clean malt with a lot of bittering hops.
2.4 AROMA 5/10 APPEARANCE 3/5 TASTE 4/10 PALATE 2/5 OVERALL 10/20
Yeah, not bad. Pretty dark, malty and creamy. Fairly sweet, not much hops and bitterness. Not sure if this is the same as Bateman’s XB, but tastes the same
3.1 AROMA 6/10 APPEARANCE 3/5 TASTE 6/10 PALATE 3/5 OVERALL 13/20
50 cl bottle from Aldi, Alfreton. Attractive copper colour with a reddish tint, rapidly vanishing white head; vegetative aroma; full and fruity with an oily texture; definite hint of almonds; a buttery and warming finish. Not at all bad.
3.4 AROMA 7/10 APPEARANCE 3/5 TASTE 7/10 PALATE 3/5 OVERALL 14/20
Damn. Just tipped some of this all over myself. It’s actually worth keeping in the pint pot. Vegetal nutty snout with a wring of dishcloth. Ruby fizz with a creamy collar. Dabs of lace. Blood, varnished table, walnut, Monster Munch. Soap and slight raisin. Still a bit of a butterscotchy/almondy background, but here it suits. Quite liked this one..
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