Sadler’s Stumbling Badger

Brewed by Sadler’s
Style: Premium Bitter/ESB
Stourbridge, England

Serve in English pint

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Bottle 500ml.

Clear medium amber orange colour with a small to average, frothy, good lacing, mostly diminishing, white to off-white head. Aroma is moderate malty, toasted, caramel, toffee, honey and oxidide notes. Flavour is moderate sweet and light moderate bitter with a average to long duration, toffee, burnt - caramelized malt, honey notes. Body is medium, texture is oily, carbonation is soft to flat. [20120809]

Bottled@chriso. Orangeish golden colour, small white head. Aroma is fruity, wooden and some slight notes of floral. Flavour is fruity, floral and some mild maltyness. Pleasant.

Bottle from Asda, Thurmaston, Leics. Pours tawny braaaan, wi’ a bit of white scum. Malt is bready, caramelly, with a dry, reasonably pleasant finish. Perhaps dried fruit notes. Perhaps an unwanted sour note in the middle of the end. It’s a Bitter, it has some sweet specks, it’s OK. Doesn’t hit Sadlers’ otherwise very high standards.

500ml bottle: best before the end of June 2012, poured into an Abbot Ale glass tankard in May 2012. Amber in colour: fast fading off-white head of bubbles on top. Smells like a fruit beer: red berries to the fore, honey just behind with brown bread used to mop it all up. The taste isn’t as sweet as the nose suggests: a hop citrus/bitterness isn’t far below the surface of this mildly malty brew. Strange mouthfeel, no richness or depth: yet it holds the flavours and hides the alcohol well. The good quality ’Red Leicester’ cheese I had towards the end of this review really set the beer off nicely: different, interesting and worth finding.

UPDATED: FEB 29, 2012 Bottle from Nisa (formerly Pedmore Wines), Grange Road, Stourbridge. Aroma of smokey treacle and yeast. Deep, dark bronze colour and a wonderful, creamy head with more lacing than you can shake a big shaky thing at. Balanced flavour of sweet, fruity and bitter notes, just the right hops for my taste. Strong without needing a knife and fork - very drinkable. I want another one. Superb.

Cask conditioned at a Wetherspoons. Amber with white head. Just when I thought that Sadlers had gone all hoppy on us, they put out a malty fruity one. Reasonable to keep them just above average, lasting and dry on the palate, but not overly special.

Cask conditioned handpump High Cross Leicester. A dark copper coloured beer with a whitish head and lacing. A nice fruity sweet toffee accented beer both in the nose and the mouth. Good deep hops on the fruity side. A good body. Nice.

500ml bottle. Pours amber with a large, frothy head. Aroma is caramel sweetness, some bread and dried fruit underneath. Taste starts with vanilla ice cream and boiled sweets. Skunky caramel finish.

Handpump at JDW, Cambridge. Gold with a big dense head. Quite a floral citrus scent. Moderate bitterness, not very carbonated. In the mouth, starts hoppy with oranges and then cereal malts following on the end. OK as a session beer but a bit bland.

JDW, Rochester. Caramel notes in this malty premium bitter. Pleasant enough.