Ascot Winter Reserve

Brewed by Ascot
Style: Premium Bitter/ESB
Camberley, England

Serve in English pint

send corrections   |   shelftag   |   edit barcodes   |   add pic

Bottle 50cl.
Unclear medium to dark brown color with a small, fizzy, virtually none lacing, fully diminishing, off-white head. Aroma is moderate malty, moderate to heavy spicy, coriander, cinnamon, juniper berry. Flavor is moderate sweet and moderate to heavy spicy (cinnamon, coriander, ginger) bitter with a average to long duration. Way to spicy IMO. Body is medium, texture is oily, carbonation is soft to flat. [20090103]

Cask gravity at White Cliffs BF 09. Too much cinnamon and spice on aroma. Too perfumed, pretty poor.

bottle at fins ... red brown ... big spiced cinamon and nutmeg nose .... toffee malt ... big cinamon ...tasty but over spiced but not rougj and bit 1d

Bottle conditioned as Santa’s Reserve, 500ml from Bellingers Garage, Grove, Oxon. Reddy brown with tan head. The spicing is apparent in the aroma giving the, accurate, impression that this is heavy with it. There is a sweetness to the body, a fruity malt that is big on the palate, then the cinnamon comes through and a dry ginger, plum duff in a glass. perhaps it should be drunk mulled, not sure, but just a little over the top for me.

A Mes rate: gravicask at Battersea Beer Festival
Very cloudy dark brown with a good beige head and decent condition. Good earthy malt with hints of chocolate, loads of spice and maybe some lavender. Full on spicy and herbal with a good bitter kick in the dry chalky finish. Decent stuff again from Ascot.
Earlier Rating: 12/24/2007 Total Score: 3.2
A Mes rate: 5l mini cask thanks to Reakt.
Murky and cloudy dark brown with a thin film. Dark dusty malt and bread with lots of yeast and spice. Heavy cinnamon and coriander showing for the finish. A little too herbacious for me but still a very well crafted brew.

Cask (gravity dispense from stillage) at the White Horse Old Ale Festival on 29 November 2008. Dark brown colour. Not much life to it. Very strongly spiced aroma. More of the same on the palate - full on "Christmas" spices, heavy on the cinnamon. Also a sort of medicinal, herbal edge. To be honest, I found the spicing far too heavy-handed and any other elements were somewhat overwhelmed. If you like strongly spiced beers this may be for you but, although I didn’t find it undrinkable (as I have with some American pumpkin beers), it’s not really my thing at all. The score reflects simply my personal taste.

Bottle with Craig, consumed at mine 09-04-10 picked up at Bellingers, Jet Garage, Grove, Nr Wantage, Oxon, April 2010 Very strange aroma that comes across as a weird sort of mixture of washing up liquid and heavy spice, Fairy should take a sniff of this and consider a new product for their line-up. Pours hazy brown, taste is strange (like the aroma) but not dislikeable, its far too heavily spiced in truth, with cloves, nutmeg, star anise and all sorts of weird and wonderful stuff coming through, ok so its a bit overkill and does numb the tongue from time to time but I actually don’t mind it for all of its faults. With regard to the spiciness Its a bit like the equavalent of me making a good curry and going "oh shit did that say teaspoon, bugger Its got a tablespoon now", so its got too much but it can still taste ok and this does, just! A6 A3 F7 P3 Ov13 3.2

Cask in the market porter with knut. Alround rating: Spicy, ginger, balanced, sweet but really drinkable. Excellent!

Draught (from mini cask). Fresh aromas of cinnamon are the first thing i noticed, howvere they aren’t too pronounced. Palate is smooth and round, lightly nutty and earthy and then with some subtle hints of coriander and cinnamon. There is some ight citrus in the finish. Very smooth and drinkable.

Cask stillage, White Horse, Parsons Green. Rich and malty, very full flavour. a true to type winter warmer. A bit Belgian in the finish. I dont think is the same as the Santas Reserve, as it does not have the spices.