3.4 AROMA 7/10 APPEARANCE 3/5 TASTE 7/10 PALATE 3/5 OVERALL 14/20
Bottle round Chris_o’s house. Ruddy colouring and a soured jelly aroma. Cherry flavour and strong metal bitterness. Fizz on the tongue and thinnish in the mouth. Very nice, but honestly at this stage I was more interested in the chilli which Chris’ wife Ruth had prepared for us.
2.9 AROMA 5/10 APPEARANCE 3/5 TASTE 6/10 PALATE 3/5 OVERALL 12/20
Bottle picked up at Tuckers Maltings, Newton Abbot in November. Black as black can be, too sweet but there were some dried fruits on the nose and kicking about in the flavour dept’ other than that I was somewhat dissapointed by this.
3.4 AROMA 6/10 APPEARANCE 3/5 TASTE 7/10 PALATE 4/5 OVERALL 14/20
Cask Stillage at the Metropolitan Cathedral Crypt, Liverpool 19/02/2003
Dark coloured and strong in alcohol. Some hoppiness. Lasting slightly malt finish.
3.4 AROMA 6/10 APPEARANCE 3/5 TASTE 7/10 PALATE 4/5 OVERALL 14/20
Bottle, bought at St Albans Beer Festival 2004. Reddish orange colour. There’s quite a lot going on in the aroma, but a lot of it is rather hard to pin down. Definite sour cherries, as others have remarked, dried fruit and cocoa are definitely in the mix somewhere, but its a bit muddled. The sour notes and cherries continue on to the palate, with more spicy fruit. A fair ration of bitterness helps to hold things together. Rather good, but I would probably have been able to appreciate the subtleties better had we not been at GBBF all day before.
2.9 AROMA 6/10 APPEARANCE 2/5 TASTE 6/10 PALATE 3/5 OVERALL 12/20
Sour cherries and light malty tones to the aroma. Clear brownish red with low tan head that diminishes rapidly to ring. Sour cherries, thin malts, underlying lasting sweetness. Light, very dry body with strong carbonation. Bottle sampled post GBBF with chris_o, daniel_brown and maeib.
4.1 AROMA 8/10 APPEARANCE 4/5 TASTE 8/10 PALATE 4/5 OVERALL 17/20
Black with brownish shine, totally opaque; slim, slightly irregular but rather dense brown head. Sourish-lactic nose, Flemish brown-like, superimposed on the classical chocolate cake. Whew -taste! Bitter, sweet and sour at the same time - some jumble. Flavours of smoked/cigar ash, bitter chocolate, fruit acids, lactic, berries, grapes and sweet cake. Very full-bodied, chewy. Aftertaste is acid-etched sweetness. Extremely likeable and dangreously drinkable for its ABV. Searched long after this -well worth the waiting. Thanks to MatW!
3.7 AROMA 7/10 APPEARANCE 4/5 TASTE 7/10 PALATE 4/5 OVERALL 15/20
What a wonderful name for a beer. With this strength of beer you may well suffer brewers droop. This is a dark ale with earthy, root vegetable flavours complemented by roast malts. Quite sweet, yet vineous at the same time this has a nice fruity, dry finish. The alcohol is quite well hidden so beware. Similar to, but inferior to Traquair House Ale.
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