Brakspear Bitter (Bottle)

Brewed by Wychwood (Refresh UK - Marstons plc)
Style: Bitter
Witney, England

660 ml brown bottle, courtesy of Cardinal pub, Stavanger. Served with original Brakspear pint glass, nice! "Double dropped", ABV is 3.4%. Brewed with Maris Otter malts, Goldings and Fuggles hops. Copper coloured, low head. Aroma of "dusty" Goldings hops + rusty iron in stale water + hospital flesh wound dressings(!) Flavour is very tasty for a 3.4% pasteurised beer, nicely balanced between the malts and hops, nutty and toffee elements, not sweet. Moderate carbonation. A nice Fuggles finish.

From the ’king brown’ bottle into a pint at just on cold. Clear, pale, tawny amber with bubbles that gripped the glass reluctant to release. That is a worry as they were huge. Head was messy, soapy and a soiled beige in colour leaving some good, frothy lacing. Dirty, celery-soup aroma with close-knit whiffs of sweaty sock and cardboard, ugh!!! Pine wood and caramel in the mouth, quite thin and a little puckering with a noticeably tight astringency curling the tongue in back. Quite woody and salty with just a little ’rusted car body’-note hitting the top of the mouth. Finish has a little more rust and pine wood, and a little too much ’Burton’. A light dusty note unfolds, and it sweetens just a little as it warms but it is otherwise dry for the length. Not overly disagreeable, it does start to grow on you as the pint empties. With this breweries distant monastic links, I can’t imagine revising this with the control of Refresh UK is a good idea, atleast it shows when tasting it. Nick Breakspear, aka Pope Adrian IV might not be too happy his mitres symbol (the bee) coming to represent such a muddled beer as this. ’Turn your brain off’ quaffable, barely!!! (66cL, 22/02/07, Int’l Beer Shop, W. Leederville)

Bottled. Very dark amber colour, big beige head. Aroma is hops and caramel. Also lots of skunkyness. Flavour is skunked hops, grass and very earthy. Long grassy aftertaste. Not too exciting...

Bottled (BB 05/2007). Dark hazelnut brown, good tan head. Woody hops, wet socks and licorice in the nose. Licorice, woody hops also in the flavor. Weak, watery body. Hoppy, salty aftertaste. Diluted with the water way too much.

660 ml bottle. Coppery amber body, off-white head. Initially some caramel in the aroma then hop notes, pine and resin. Light in body but has good flavour through the length of the drink plus the hops feature more than malt. I have had a good rest from bitters so this beer seemed half decent.

660 ml bottle. Copper coloured with a tall white head made from egg-whites. Crystal clear. Rich malty aroma with figs and fruity hops. Light-bodied. Lightly burnt malts. Somewhat medicinal hop flavour. Nicely balanced hop bitterness, not too dominant. Finishes somewhat dry, but with this fig-like flavour. Much flavour for a beer this low in alcohol. Very nice indeed. I was surprised to find this bottle in a grocery shop in Sweden. I’ve had this one of draught a few times in earlier years and I love it. It should not be surprising that I like it better cask conditioned. Bottle is fine too.

On bottle 0,66l at Tromsø Ølfestival 17 Aug 06. Brown colour. A creamy head. Fruity aroma. Flavour of fruits and caramel. A lasting cautious bitter aftertaste. Quite good.

At Tromsø Ølfestival Aug 16-19, 2006(Tromsø Beer Festival) there were a good range of beers from Wychwood and Brakspear. This one, that came in an appealing 660ml bottle, had a rich taste despite low alcohol. Light copper colour topped by a off-white cap. Aroma was fruity and a bit citric. Fine hoppy flavour with notes of grain and malt and a robust bitter finish. A bit watery, though.