Bottle, 12C. Dark red with a good coat of beige head that laces well. Modest aroma of toffee, nuts, pears, chocolate, hints of spices. Sweet with toffee and stewed dark fruits, a little chocolate. Bitterness creeps up quite a bit to support and choke off the sweetness. Fuller palate (even a touch of alcohol) than you might expect - there is a definite illusion of strength and there’s no deadness often associated with pastuerised English beer. Good.

Just got in from fronting a Christmas Quiz for the local Medical Centre (my wife volunteers me each year to organise, prepare and conduct it). I am therefore ready to have a Christmas beer: too sink slowly and review at leasure. The tall brown 500ml bottle was best before 28 Jan 2011, I opened it on 4 Dec 2010. Poured into a ’La Chouffe’ tulip and a ’Forbidden Fruit’ chalice (because I fancied seeing what it looked like in different glasses). Lovely ruby red body, dark and clear, with a full tan coloured foaming head. The smells were of roasted/toasted/burnt malts and thick semi-sweet molasses, nutty brown bread sort of thing too. The taste is all malts, drying as the mouth gets used to the flavours, the hops giving a bitter feel from the initial sip to the end of the tasting. Strangely however the beer ends up sweeter in the mouthfeel than it did when first sampled. I was expecting/hopeful of, a rich and creamy Winter Warmer, reminding me of Chritmas’s past: roaring fires, smoking jackets, cigars and my childhood. Sadly, it didn’t produce those sort of memories. An OK beer, lacked that X Factor which I hoped for.

Bottle. Clear dark brown with big beige head. Aroma is malt and fruit. Flavour is malt, fruit, hops, medium bitter, caramel, little chocolate and a little nutty.

Bottle (obviously). Pours dark brown. Nose/taste is heavy chocolate and black malt, nuts and light cereal grain. Lots of malt. Medium body.

50cl bottle. Pours a beautiful chestnut brown with a perfect head. The nose has toffee and grapes. The taste has coffee/earthy and the fruitiness kicks in at the end. The palate has a medium bodied and the texture is tight, so the flavour is somewhat locked in. The finish is dry and clean. Overall, a decent hoppy Christmas ale.

Bottle from Gordon & MacPhail, Elgin.
Chestnut brown, clear, frothy rocky head, good lacing.
Aroma - Caramel malts, fruity, bit bready, some raisins and hint of spice
Taste of rich caramel malts, some roasted malt, nuts, caramel and toffee, dark fruit cake, spicy hops.
Palate - soft carb, medium body, smooth, bit oily texture. Finish - dry, bit woody, slightly over-lingering bitter spicy hop.
Overall - Good winter beer from Hook Norton

Colabrown beer with a weak and blond head. Aroma is complex and interesting, roastiness, peanuts, fruitness and chocolate. Taste is nutty and malty, some roastiness, quite dry with balanced bitterness. Almost medium bodied to drink, quite nice. Again, personal and nice beer from Hook Norton, very interesting beer even points aren’t higher, I can recommend this beer to try.

C: Brown with some redness shining through. S: Coffee, chocolate, caramel. T: Coffee, roasty. P: full body