Harveys Star of Eastbourne

Brewed by Harveys
Style: Premium Bitter/ESB
Lewes, England

Handpulled cask at the Garland in Redhill. Amber/gold with a thin white head. Malty with more than a hint of diactyl and crying out for more hops.

From cask at Charlies. Pours clear and golden deep orange with a small off-white head. Aroma is light fruity. Mild sweet and rather malty initial flavour. Fruity, tangerine and peaches, sweet impression following. Light caramelish note. Distinct bitterness and lingering fruity note into the finish. Ends dry and with a lasting fruity note from back of the tongue.

Bottle 50cl.
Clear light to medium amber orange color with a small, fizzy, fair lacing, mostly diminishing, off-white head. Aroma is moderate malty, caramel, light to moderate hoppy, orange, apple. Flavor is moderate sweet and light acrid bitter with a average duration. Body is medium, texture is oily, carbonation is soft. [20090730]

Bottled (at Chris O). Ambery golden colour, small white head. Aroma is quite fruity and berryish, with some slight yeasty and wooden notes. Flavour is quite much the same, quite sweet, but niicely hopped brew.

Bottle (500ml). At Royal Oak, Borough. Clear bright brass-coloured pour with a lasting average creamy-foamy off-white head. Odd aroma - cheap white wine, apple cores, mild sweet caramel malt with faint floral bitterness - this really has a lot of apple character, which is, again, odd. Tasted of sweetish apple, alcohol and strong pungent fresh-floral bitterness; sweet and strongly bitter - somehow this weird combo really worked for me, I happily drank to the bottom of this bottle. Solid body, some astringency from the hops, mildly carbonated, with a fairly long bitter finish (came to be a bit like biting an appleseed), the longer I drank it, the more I appreciated it.

I had this when it was released at the Eastbourne beer festival a few years back and thought it was fantastic...wish i could remember it a bit better! This is the bottled version 6.5% not so good....cooked on the nose and very muddied flavours, sweet boiled vege malt, not much hop presence...tastes like it’s had the shit boiled out of it!

The beer has soft English hops in the nose with apples showing a big presence. I was surprised the body was so aggressively hopped and big hoppy finish. Of course if I went online and read the description before ordering it would have made sense. Nevertheless I really enjoyed this beer.

Cask-conditioned at the Royal Oak, London SE1 16/10/08. Amber with a decent white head. Fruity aroma with some earthy yeast. Flavour had some caramel sweetness, red fruit, a hint of woodiness and some citrus hops. The alcohol was rather prominent. Ok.