3.3 AROMA 6/10 APPEARANCE 4/5 TASTE 7/10 PALATE 3/5 OVERALL 13/20
Had at Real Ale Festival on from cask - May 30, 2003
Beer has an orange hue with good clairty and a white head that diminishes quickly. Aroma is of fruits and pine. The flavor exhibits pine as well with a good amount of hops. There's a slight sweetness to go with the pine flavor and the 10% is masked well.
4.1 AROMA 8/10 APPEARANCE 4/5 TASTE 8/10 PALATE 4/5 OVERALL 17/20
Sampled @ Pizza Port Real Ale Festival 2003.Pours a vibrant orange that seems to glow from the inside. Nose is full of citrus/tropical fruit notes. Very creamy palate, full bodied but not heavy. Flavor has pineapple and mango notes with a sweet front cut nicely by a bitterness in the finish. No alcohol is noticeable. An excellent brew!
3.7 AROMA 6/10 APPEARANCE 4/5 TASTE 8/10 PALATE 5/5 OVERALL 14/20
UPDATED: AUG 27, 2003 Head is initially small, frothy, off-white, mostly lasting. Body is medium amber. Aroma is heavily hoppy (resin, grapefruit), moderately malty (cookie), lightly yeasty (dough), with light notes of apricot and alcohol. Flavor is heavily sweet, lightly acidic, moderately bitter. Finish is moderately sweet, lightly acidic, heavily bitter. Full body, velvety/creamy texture, lively carbonation, lightly alcoholic. New tweaked recipe shows MUCH better flavor balance and mouthfeel than the original batch. Aroma is mostly the same as before, although a little more malt is allowed to peek through the strong resinous hops. Lasting head now too. This is much improved, though I'm still not a big fan of the aroma...American hopheads will like it, but I don't find it very appealing or complex despite the large number of ingredients. Nice enough though. But damn, the flavor profile is immensely better now...still that huge malt sweetness, but now there is PLENTY of bitterness to clean things up wonderfully (and not too terribly much citric sourness, thankfully). Mouthfeel is now luxurious velvet instead of sticky syrup. Quite a step up from my original rating (5/3/5/3/10 = 2.6). Cheers to Adam for the post-market fine-tuning.
3.4 AROMA 7/10 APPEARANCE 4/5 TASTE 6/10 PALATE 3/5 OVERALL 14/20
(cask) Cloudy orange color..some licorice notes in the nose..very resiny with super sticky bitterness and alcohol heat...some sweetness and licorice, a little sage in the aftertaste..But too damn sticky and bitter..
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