After all those golden ales we’ve been drinking, this one comes as a shock to the system. It isn’t golden, or see-through, or highly carbonated! What the hell! It’s getting colder outside though and as much as we try to deny it, the nights are starting to draw in whilst the mornings get lighter. Despite being in the summer case, this style of beer feels kinda right.
The aroma is pretty complex. I get a lot of German Rye bread, the tangy, almost sour, savoury quality you find in that horrible German Rye bread. There’s toffee and treacle; malty sweetness that tag-teams with slight roasty notes to create something akin to Nutella. It smells good. Actually, no, it smells great.
But then when you drink it, it’s a little disappointing. It’s all a bit thin and empty, the body isn’t there and the finish is all metal and tannic astringency. That aroma sets you off thinking about big barley wines, roaring fires and cold toes; but the flavour just doesn’t deliver. Booo!
I mean it’s far from bad, don’t get me wrong. That toffee, chocolate, rye and roast follow through into the mouth and they’re nice. They’re pleasant, and the finish does become increasing balanced-out as you drink down the glass. That aroma though, it just promised so much more.
Let’s finish with two questions. Yep, two. What do you make of the beer? If you had to assign it a style, which would you pick? I – putting arguments as to whether or not it’s a single beer or a style aside – can kinda see this as an ESB. The malt profile hits me all very-small-barley-wine and that just makes me think Extra Special Bitter.
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I agree with you. Tragic beer! The aroma knocks your socks off but theres no matching flavour. The taste is grainy, theres some sweetness and a tiny malt hit but the hops are so astringent that it overpowers the subtle malts. It improves as it warms but its just too rough for me. If it had a more malty backbone and the astringent hops were more of a rounded bitterness, I think it would work better. I've not had it on cask, but I have heard good things about it, maybe its just different in bottle?
ReplyDeleteI'd have to go with ESB, but I've not had many. It doesnt seem to have the malt to be a strong dark ale aka hobgoblin.
Mike
Always good to hear someone else tasted the same things as you. Is it the hops that are bringing the astringency or is it something else? Dark malt character, tannins from the malt, too high a sparge etc?
ReplyDeleteI'm surprised by the negative comments. I had this beer in last summer's 52WBC case, and I noted it as the best of the non-conditioned bottles in that case. Mind you, I find that I generally do prefer dark, full bodied bottled beers, unlike draught ones. My notes describe it as having little aroma, but being well-balanced and fruity. I scored it as 4/5, which means I'll always look out for it.
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