Marstons Late Hopped

Formerly brewed at Marstons (Marstons plc)
Style: Premium Bitter/ESB
Burton-on-Trent, England

Serve in English pint

i think the hops were so late they got missed altogether, well there is some hopiness, but just a big brewer using inferior ingredients jumping on the "hop" "craft" bandwagon but failing miserably, not undrinkable but very disappointing and extremely bland

Bottle 04/10/2004 Golden amber coloured and hoppy. Some dryness in a bitter lasting finish.

Bottled. Ooh no, didn’t like this one. Sickly sweet and unrelentingly artificial tasting. Glazes the tongue, but not in a pleasant way. Quite bad.

One of Marstons better bottled beers, great summer drinking. Poured a marmalade colour with a thin white head. The floral nose is deliciously zesty, with some limey hop characters. Light bodied and quenching. Has that wonderful Marstons green apple crispness. Here it’s coupled with a citric hop tang and a lingering bitterness. In bottled form, this comes up much better than some of the brewer’s better ales. (Bottle)

I respect Marstons, though I wouldn’t say that there are many differences between their session bitters. This is sold together with Pedigree, Single Malt and Double Drop. Maybe the hoppiest of them. Clear bottle, copper colour, thin head, malty and fruity aroma, hoppy, malty and ironish taste. Dry finish.

UPDATED: DEC 5, 2004

Bottled.Deep golden colour, quite a nice looking white head. Very bitter aroma and flavour. Long bitter palate.

There are two enjoyable aspects of reviewing beers. Being the first is great and then there is being the tenth which gives rise to the percentile. Ok now to the beer. This is a good amber with the promised nose of hops, The head is thin but still presentable all the way down. The flavour is good but not brilliant. This is the sort of beer that you would expect to see in an English pub, which fom my perspective is not a bad thing, but it isn't a 'wow' beer either.