So the piercing-blue eyes of a fella stare me down from behind the decapitated heads of two horses. Sometimes the bottle label grabs you and pulls you right in, other times it doesn't.
Un-Hung hero is a 5% pale ale that's brewed with Cascade and Northdown hops. The bottle text warns off those that like their beer fizzy and bland; ironic really because this is one of the most carbonated bottled beers I think I've ever drunk. The head is billowy and pillowy in the White Shield mould and sticks around throughout.
The aroma is great, it screams CASCADE at the top of its lungs, lots of really fresh hop aroma, grapefruit pith and peel and freshly squeezed juice. It's one of those aromas that you don't focus on long because it makes you just want to drink the beer.
But that's where the positives kinda end for me. The taste is dominated by a fruity sweetness that moves into green apple - a sure fire sign of acetaldehyde. Usually formed through oxidation or an incomplete fermentation, acetaldehyde is a compound that's almost always unwanted in beer. Imagine biting into a really crisp, cold, fresh green apple; that's the exact flavour I'm tasting here and that's the flavour of acetaldehyde.
Right in the background there's a husky, cereally, biscuit flavour that's coming from the grain. It's nice, but not enough to turn this bottle around.
Faults like this in a beer can be limited to a bottle or a batch. Just because the bottle I got wasn't perfect, doesn't mean the others were the same. How was yours?
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I think yours was better than mine by the sounds of it. Mine was fizzy like yours, I could smell the cascade, but I wouldn't have said it was over prominent, initially the taste was a bit bland, nothing to really get excited about, with I would say some chemically taste in the background. I then had to dash off and do something in the garage, when I returned 30 minutes later the beer had warmed, them chemical flavours had developed enormously rendering the beer almost undrinkable. It's not often I don't finish a beer, but this was one of them.
ReplyDeleteI would like to try this beer from cask, just to prove to myself it is actually a nice beer, I can only assume something is not right in the bottling process.
On a plus side, the yeast sediment did remain firmly packed in the bottle so I didn't get any in the glass.
Very interesting. Couple of mm head on mine, not too fizzy. Very bitter on the palate, good biscuity background body, but for me not much hop aroma at all. Plenty of hop flavour though!
ReplyDeleteI could sink a couple :)
No acetylaldehyde or chemicals btw!
ReplyDeleteDid we all get the same beer, it really doesn't seem likely.
ReplyDeleteInteresting. Sounds like we might've got different batches!
ReplyDeleteGBD: When you say "chemical", what kind of flavour do you mean? Chlorine or bleach, TCP or phenolic? Or is it difficult to narrow it down any further?
I don't really know how to narrow it down, it wasn't chlorine or TCP, I know about them I've had that in my homebrew. I would have said more solvent like.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, having rather embarassingly just discovered that the brewery is about 10 miles from my house, I am off to find a pub that stocks it on draught. I will report back my findings. I may be some time.......
Bit late to the party (sick and late birthday pressy) but I'm starting with this BC beer. Mine is nnot too fizzy by the way...
ReplyDeleteHERO.
A litle cloudy but that's not unexpected.
I chilled the beer a little (my preference for pale ales).
This is a fine beer; fizzy mouthfeel; well hopped and bitter and a great summer beer. Only problem is there's no summer...
I've got a bit of catching up to do so better get on. Good start. Cheers.
Welcome Drinkerab. Just comparing my photo to yours suggests a LOT of varitation beetween bottles.
ReplyDeleteGDB: If it isn't great when 10 miles from the brewery, it never will be! :P