Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 3 | Flavor - 3 | Texture - 4 | Overall - 3.5

[500ml bottle, gift from my wife - thanks!] [500ml bottle, gift from my wife - thanks!] Copper with a moderate but rapidly diminshing head. Surprisingly big hit of bitter and leafy hops up front, then a syrupy sweet mix of cough mixture, cinnamon and cloves. It’s an interesting concept, and I can see what they were going for here - they hoped to get some lemon from the hops to add to the spicy flavours to give you hot cross bun. Unfortunately it’s the bitter leafiness of the hop that’s come throughinstead and it really doesn’t work with the spices and sweetness. In fact, it’s a complete unbalanced mess of a beer. Maybe it would have worked better with a purer orangey or lemony hop with no leafiness (citra?).. Still, at least it’s interesting!

Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 8 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 7.5

Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 7.5

29th June 2010: This beer is brewed for the Morrisons Supermarket chain by Titanic and is going to be released around Easter (hence the Hot Cross Bun type name). The beer is brewed with spices and sultana flavours? The clear glass bottle containing 500ml of beer was poured into an ’Old Speckled Hen’ vase shaped pint glass. An off white head sat on top of a reddy hued amber body, clear and bright looking. The aroma is very interesting, peppery, cinnamon and hints of treacle. The tase follows along nicely, cinnamon and peppery, with an undercurrent of sweeter molasses/treacle and some mace added for some reason. I found this both interesting and different, really enjoyed it and very good value.

Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 8

bottle at home ... copper ... big bubbl;y tan head ... soft spicy hop front ... big raisin nose ... big bitter cinamon front ... juicy toffee malt ... definite spice ... cinamon... hint of clove ... again some rasins... oddly i think this is quite interesting ... reasonably tasty and would be interesting to make a spiced beer loaf with

Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 2 | Flavor - 2 | Texture - 4 | Overall - 1.5

500ml bottle from Morrisons. Now I like Titanic so was looking forward to this right up to the moment that I opened the bottle and was assailed olfactorarily by the spice. A good looking deep russet colour with a lasting dark beige head. The aroma is somewhere between your grannies perfume and pot pourri. Not even the promised straight cinnamon a kind of sweet spiciness. Oh my god it’s terrible. Man, that has to go down as one of the worst beers I’ve ever had that doesn’t have a clear brewing/cellaring fault. No malt in the body, sweet spices, but not in a good way, thin in the mouth, some latent spice/hop on finish. Really awful. Almost like bubblegum in some absurd way. Wow. That is really truly bad.

Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 6 | Flavor - 3 | Texture - 4 | Overall - 4

50cl bottle from Morrisons. Deep gold with a dense cream head; aroma of lemon, ginger and cinnamon; the taste is rather unusual! - bitter and full of cinnamon with some sweet fruity malts fighting to get through. Not a good combination.

Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 2 | Flavor - 3 | Texture - 4 | Overall - 2

500ml bottle from Morrisons. Golden colour, medium, fast disappearing, white head. Aroma of citrus, cinnamon, sweet malts, ginger, nutmeg. Flavour of sweet malts, ginger, cinnamon, citrus. Medium carbonation, light bodied. Fairly dry and slightly bitter finish. The combination of spices, sweet malts and raisins, citrus and bitterness is just wrong.