Morland Hens Tooth

Brewed by Greene King
Style: English Strong Ale
Bury St. Edmunds, England

500 ml bottle. Poured out a hazy light brown with orange highlights and a meringue-like thick ivory head. Malt, yeasty bread, alcohol and a little caramel in the nose. The taste was mostly bitter hops with some roasted malt, yeast and slight fruity overtones. Very clean finish and right amount of carbonation on the palate. I enjoyed it, and would have it again.

Orange brown with a stiff foamy off-white head, which slowly faded leaving loads of sticky lace. After pouring half, the bottle had a matrix of huge bubbles stacked from the top of the remaining liquid to the rim of the bottle neck. Aromas were malt, bread, floral hops, brewed espresso, chocolate and roasted coffee beans. Taste was a big hit of bitter and hops, followed by a growing toasty malt, dark fruit, citrus, grain, yeast, coffee and chocolate, then morphing to a nice intensely bitter yet clean and dry finish. Mouthfeel was spot-on.

Bottle. Sweet malt aroma. Amber color with small head. Tangy sweet berry and malt flavor with moderate hops. Nicely drinkable - light for a strong ale.

500 ml bottle. A bitter end to a beer’s long journey. I found this in June of 2004 at a corner store in St. Petersburg, Russia of all places. God knows how long it sat there in a florescent-lit glass case, but it has a "Best Before" of 16 Nov. ’04. Also has the original bottleneck tag and some Russian labeling stickers. Guess I should’ve had it last year, but at least it’s been in my beer fridge since I got it home. Now that I’m seeing the same clear bottle in stores around here, it’s hardly in "hen’s tooth" territory. So here we go, realizing that the rating is going to be completely out of the brewer’s control:
A big-bubbled froth of foam wells up when I pop the cap, and keeps on coming, still trying to climb out of bottle until I pour about half of it in the glass. As expected, there’s a skunked smell, but not too bad. A big English hop nose in a shaker glass, with a bit of Maypo cereal involved. Looks nice enough once I get it to settle into the glass. Taste has lots of bready crystal malt with a caramel overtone. Mild, fruity English ale finish. Warming alcohol presence. I was prepared to find a disaster, but this is actually "a bit of all right." Leaves not only some yeast at the bottom of the bottle, but a ring of crust in the neck.

Pours a beautiful ruby amber with a lasting head and decent lacing. Aroma is a little skunky but not offensive. The flavor is well balanced and satisfying. No aftertaste or lingering bitterness from the hops. A wonderful session beer (too bad I only have one bottle).

After tasting a few English Strong’s with similar characters of late, I get the impression the brewers are emulating ESB’s as far as flavour and just pumping up the alcohol. The drastically needed complexities of the style have all but gone out the window, especially with this one. Tasted from the bottle after a short stay in the cellar, and poured into a large flute glass. Sparkling, burnished copper body with a well-charged flurry of fine carbonation raising up to a compact 1" beige head that showed good retention and left some legs. It looked good! Quite soft and subtle on the nose. Zesty marmalade, citrus fruits and a little toffee; quite pleasant. Quite sweet and aggressively raspy on the tongue, bitter in the back reminiscent of eucalypt leaves. Strong note of burnt sugar came in after a few mouthfuls and belies its rather thin body. Soft in mouthfeel, it has the lightest touch of melonous fruit flavours mid-palate, before all hops and a little alcohol filled the rather short, fresh and lightly warming swallow. Not a bad Bitt...err, Strong Ale! Easy to drink, but a lower ABV would be a better fit. (50cL, 17/02/06)

orange amber w/ white head that quickly disappears. mild aroma, or my nose is not working well. bitter aftertaste, sweet flavor.

26 November 2005. Morland Hen’s Tooth. Bottle. This beer looks great in the glass: golden-orange, just a shade or two lighter than a tawny port, and the lacing is decent. Aroma is not all that strong: grassy and fresh. Flavor is a little bland: some straw, some grass (I feel like I say that a lot with (bottled) British ales…), some chalky minerals. All in all, I could take it or leave it. And, sadly, this beer is *not* as rare as a hen’s tooth, but is par for the course…