Dorset Durdle Door

Brewed by Dorset
Style: Premium Bitter/ESB
Dorchester, England

Serve in English pint

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Bright bottled @ Thurrock Fest. Fresh notes: "Dark amber premium bitter with a pleasant fruity tang and a chalky finish. Score 3.0" I remember the Quay Brewery from a holiday in Dorset when the woman at the bar in the brewery tap refused to serve Chrissie a shandy using Quay beer. Like the beer was more precious and important than the customer. I felt annoyed, Chrissie was embarrassed. Remembering it now I still feel annoyed. Anyway - this beer hasn’t survived in the bottle as well as the others - and I’m sure they’d be shocked to hear I put their precious liquid in a plastic bottle! Rating it today this would get average.

Bottle. Pours a mid brown colour with a thin white head. Plenty of malt and fruit in the aroma, the taste is of sweet malt with plenty of fruit with a dry finish.

Tasted this at the Paisley Beer Festival in April 2007. Cask, handpump dispense. Clear copper red in colour with a thin white head. Sweet citric notes of marmalade present in the short aroma. Thin resiny mouthfeel and good lacing. Pale malts give a fiery digerstive biscuit base with tart redcurrant fruit and orange peel flavours noted. Citric hops give a slightly dry, resiny aftertaste short in intensity. Finish is slightly malty with dry woody tannin notes. An ok ESB but still tastes slightly weaker than the 5% suggests.

Cask, handpump @ The Powder Monkey, Exmouth, Devon.
Feintly hazy tawny copper and hatless, completely without life. Citrus and berry fuelled nose with a light malt showing, sadly shortlived. Dry, dusty, earthy swallow, sweet fruity front with lemon zest, pear and peach flavours. A little bitter berries around the rear and hold in the linger. Soft malt tones give it backbone, the body is extremely light for a 5.0%er, I half expected there to be a little noticeable alcohol. Pleasantly sweet start, dry tail and a quenching bitter swallow. A little on the safe side, but a decent Bitter all round.

Raven, Bath. Golden-amber. Sweetish with light caramel. Nice chocolate, more caramel on the palate - good balance but really nothing special.

Cask@Melton Beer Festival, 2010. Thick amber beer with a sour and mildly bitter aroma. The flavour is sour and gently bitter. Overall a nice bitter and sour beer.

Cask, Melton Fest 10. Amber orange with an off white foam. Aromas are caramel with orange marmalade and earthy hops. Citrus with yeast. Flavours are fruity malts with medicinal and jammy notes. Clean and yeasty mouthfeel. Decent.

Cask @ The Raven, Bath (coastal beer fest). Dark red-orange. Strawberries in the aroma is a new, nice sensation. Malty character is fruity. Yeasty and quite sticky. Has same berry entry as the aromas suggested. Finishes more bready. Nice flavor journey.

Nose is lychee and gooseberry but a slight astringent ethanol quality comes through. Pours pure copper with a weak head but strong lacing. Flavour starts by following the nose but develops a toffeeish sweetness in the long finish that leaves you wanting more. Quite a pleasant bitter.

A Mes rate: cask at Baker St ’Sporks.
My god this is pretty dire. Hazy orange gold with a thick creamy off white head. No sparkler! Fruit and bleach aroma. Caramel and apple flavour with some fruit and bleach flavour. Oh and a rusty old bucket in the finish. Shocker!

Cask conditioned at The Couer de Lion, Bath. Amber with white head. Dry fruity malty bitter with toffee caramel sweetness in the main body. Some late hops, reasonable.