3.3 AROMA 8/10 APPEARANCE 3/5 TASTE 6/10 PALATE 3/5 OVERALL 13/20
[500ml bottle from Samphire, Blickling Hall, Norfolk] Pours brown - completely lifeless with no head. Gorgeous chocolate aroma. Salty overcooked cabbage in the flavour - presumably from the samphire. Some tar and cough mixture, but the chocolate just about wins through. Unusual, and could be good, but agree with previous comments about poor condition.
2.7 AROMA 6/10 APPEARANCE 2/5 TASTE 6/10 PALATE 2/5 OVERALL 11/20
Bottle. Poured a pretty lifeless black, struggled to get even a semblance of a head - cokey and quickly disappearing. Aromas of red wine up front with salty, savoury, smokey notes and some roasted malt. Quite tart on the tongue, sharp berry notes with a light roasted, salty bitter finish. Appearance reflects the palate - lacking any real condition, mostly flat and light to medium in body. Looks like I need to try this from cask.
2.5 AROMA 5/10 APPEARANCE 1/5 TASTE 6/10 PALATE 2/5 OVERALL 11/20
BC?? Black squash pour slopping mutely into the pot. Fox have really impressed me with their bottled efforts in the past but this is dead and headless like morning after takeout. Nosing reveals damp end of festival vegetal notes, roasted nuttiness, Marmite on toast,coal, coffee, bramble. Not very subtle. Oily, faintly charred and a dab salty. Sourish with black cherry and bramble notes merging into brine, mocha, watery Marmite and cigar smokiness. Some decent stouty notes if you go digging. The interplay of sour, salty, bitter and....rockpool is interesting, but ultimately another English beer wrecked by bottle conditioning, or the lack of it.
3.5 AROMA 7/10 APPEARANCE 4/5 TASTE 8/10 PALATE 4/5 OVERALL 12/20
Bottle.Black with a small head,aroma of coffee and red wine,taste is of red wine roasted coffee malt with some tartness,long dry black and raspberry finish.
3.6 AROMA 7/10 APPEARANCE 3/5 TASTE 7/10 PALATE 4/5 OVERALL 15/20
Cask conditioned at The Fox & Hounds, Heacham, Norfolk. Very dark brown beer, no head. Dark, deep roasted tarry notes abound from the start of the beer, hints of liquorice and, interestingly cloves, maybe this was from the seaweed and a heavy syrupy herbal flavour. Certainly an interesting beer if challenging.
4 AROMA 8/10 APPEARANCE 4/5 TASTE 8/10 PALATE 4/5 OVERALL 16/20
A dark, almost black, brown coloured beer with flashes of ruby red, topped with a thick off white head. A deep,roasted malt nose of coffee, liquorice and burnt sugar. The taste is bitter, with the tannic mouthfeel of an espresso! Coffee flavours are accompanied by roasted malt, caramel and liquorice, but there is an underlying green, vegetable saltiness, that comes from the samphire. (Cask - @ The Fox & Hounds, Heacham, Norfolk).
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