bottle from sainsbury. dark amber colour, not much head to talk about. very earthy, slightly sour malt nose. sweet yeasty taste, still earthy with a bit of chalk and horse. quite decent, but forgetable.

Oops. Nearly entered this into the database under its full title (Arthur Pendragon S.A). Budget bottle from Sainsbury’s. We’ve got a real gusher on our hands here. Well, an oozer anyway. Beige worm of froth wriggling from the bottle a good 10 minutes after most if it had been (very carefully) decanted. Froths insanely without provocation. At least you know they’ve stuck some yeast in there. Impressive from a BCA seeing as so many of them are stone dead and pour like cordial. Apple strudel yeastiness, earthy jammy hop (with a musty squeeze of green), and enticing caramel aroma really makes me want to tuck right in. Earthy chocolate apple hop flavour sprinkled with ash. Yep, loads of pretty standard BC acidity, earthy applepeel and yeasty sparkle, but it didn’t detract from my enjoyment of the beer. Clean but dirty. Well conditioned but badly behaved. Naughty one.

Bottle from Sainsbury. Deep amber, rocky off white head. Nice yeast, decent ESB. It’s got a bit of that earthy BCA quality to it. Yeast character is good. Fruit berry is good. But the BCA earthiness ruins it for me.

Bottle from Sainsbury’s Cannock. Big head upon pouring with a very definite and unusual flavour. Full bodied and quite bitter with som hops present. a malt finnish makes for a very interesting bitter.Unusual, quite complex and interesting.

Bottle, from Sainsburys, Grimsby. Copper bronze, thin shortlived off white head, low condition. Gentle sweet toffee and caramel in the nose with a slight burnt roastiness, quite sweet initially in the mouth with a hefty yeast bitterness developing and a faint suggestion of barnyard, remaining yeast bitterness in the finish with some more retronasal cow shite.