3.1 AROMA 6/10 APPEARANCE 3/5 TASTE 6/10 PALATE 3/5 OVERALL 13/20
Cask (Ealing BF2008)
Pale orange, tiny head. Marmite and kimchee aroma. Pickled vegetal hot spicy taste. Odd. Hoppy.
2.5 AROMA 5/10 APPEARANCE 2/5 TASTE 5/10 PALATE 3/5 OVERALL 10/20
Cask conditioned, gravity dispensed at Harbury Beer Fest ’10. Hazed amber with white head. This was sourish and fruity tart with a flowery hint. Really not to my taste.
2.7 AROMA 4/10 APPEARANCE 2/5 TASTE 6/10 PALATE 3/5 OVERALL 12/20
Hand pulled at the Canalside Cafe, Birmingham. Brown bitter, scum top. Murky pub table aroma. Malty bitter with a salty cracker flavour, especially in the finish. Not to my tastes - these sorts of beers never feel fresh, even when they are.
2.7 AROMA 5/10 APPEARANCE 3/5 TASTE 5/10 PALATE 3/5 OVERALL 11/20
Gravity Cask, Chelmsford Beer Festival Beech sawdust aroma plus a stale barnyard quality. That's all I wrote.
2.8 AROMA 5/10 APPEARANCE 3/5 TASTE 6/10 PALATE 2/5 OVERALL 12/20
This was the biggest controversy of the Chelmsford Beer Festival, as attended by SilkTork, Duff, and myself. This beer did not please. A yellow body, slightly hazy, with a ring of head, it had a curious aroma of curdling milk. A thin palate and quick finish did suggest some underlying fruitiness, but the aroma brought it down. It was a hot first day of the festival, which had brought in a top-flight cooling system for the casks. However, it was not that this cask had 'gone-off', rather, the argument was whether this was "too green", that it wasn't ready to be served. The chief of the beer at the festival did not appear to be the most knowledgeable--he didn't know the beer and didn't seem to know how to identify a "green" beer. So who knows. Whether or not it was green, it was not the worst beer we tried this day. The heat seemed to give some beers a sulphur edge. That wasn't a problem here. So what to do with this? I have handicapped this a bit out of fairness--the appearance, flavor, and palate were fully in a "normal" range to me, but the aroma could be where this is actually better--or maybe it is just a bad beer. I will re-rate this at the first available opportunity, and I have entered it into the system in the hope that others can add to our collective knowledge of this bitter. (gravity cask at 2003 Chelmsford beer festival)
|
