3.7 AROMA 7/10 APPEARANCE 3/5 TASTE 8/10 PALATE 3/5 OVERALL 16/20Cask conditioned handpump Moon On The Square Northampton 29/05/12. A chestnut to ruby coloured beer with off-white bubbles for a head. A sweet caramelly nutty cakey beer. A good depth of flavours. Boozy. Almost Christmassy. Really nice. I liked this a lot.
3 AROMA 7/10 APPEARANCE 3/5 TASTE 5/10 PALATE 3/5 OVERALL 12/20
500ml bottle from AP Harvey Wines, Coventry. Pours clear bronze with a thinning cream foam. Aroma aniseed-peppered stone fruit, muscovado, strong dark Baltic lager, fig, blackened bananas, the fruitbowl after you’ve come back from a fortnight in Crete. Heady, bitter and something of a struggle at first with a Bateman’s turned-up-to-11 character; aniseed, bread, dough. Builds with malt loaf and mottled banana notes as it warms. The bitterness is back-of-the-tongue and ill-suited to the mouldering, sherried, overripe plum character on show. Departs breadily but an offputting bitterness clings. Not convinced.
3.1 AROMA 6/10 APPEARANCE 4/5 TASTE 6/10 PALATE 4/5 OVERALL 11/20
Cask, gravity at Banbury Beer Festival 10.05.12 Pours amber no head. Toffee is very much evident in the mouth and this has a quite thick mouthfeel. This is pleasant enough but after some very good cider and a great Brew Wharf beer it does fall back into line somewhat and would be trailing those by a considerable margin, though this is an ok Hooky beer. However to put this into context it seems just a little flabby and old fashioned, nothing particularly wrong with that, but its a bit like a porky old time heavyweight fighter in an contest against an up and coming young lean, mean, speedy fighter. Yes it is a Hooky beer and it knows where to aim its shots but you know where they are coming from and the impact of these before you even take a sip, it lacks in the hops department, has too much caramel and toffee malty flavours and is a little leaden. Why rather than giving us a souped up Old Hooky couldn’t they have done something totally unhooky like is my main criticism. Fine. A6 A4 T6 P4 Ov11 3.1
3.5 AROMA 7/10 APPEARANCE 4/5 TASTE 7/10 PALATE 3/5 OVERALL 14/20
Cask conditioned at Banbury Beer Fest ’12. Brown with White head. Described as Old Hooky with go faster stripes in the programme, I can see where they are coming from. There is a full flavour, malty with a sweetish toffee caramel note, disguises the alcohol pretty well. There is a late leafy hop flavour, quite earthy. Decent.
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