McNeill's Brewery Duck's Breath Bitter

Duck's Breath Bitter

 

McNeill's Brewery in Brattleboro, Vermont, United States 🇺🇸

  Bitter - ESB / Strong Bitter Regular
Score
6.21
ABV: - IBU: - Ticks: 2
Sign up to add a tick or review

Join Us


     Show


5
Appearance - 10 | Aroma - 4 | Flavor - 3 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 4

Cask at the brewery, 5/27/17.
Having fond memories of delicious (and some not so delicious) cask beers at McNeill’s back in the day, I basically badgered my friend in to coming in for a beer after leaving Hermit Thrush. To my delight, it was served a perfectly bright, honey-apricot-golden with warm sunny hues and a thick, butter-colored head atop with perfect retention. Well, that certainly looks good.
However, the first few whiffs were a bit baffling. Was a getting wet mop? Certainly not much discernible hop or yeast character. Extremely dull and muted with something odd going on here.
Immediately upon first sip the culprit was outed. Huge chemical/bleach flavors that completely drowned out any beer flavor. The texture was great, the carbonation perfect and the beer was even nice and dry, but it had an overarching bleach character to it that we couldn’t get past. Didn’t have time to stay for another, though I wish I would have. Still love McNeill’s even after having had such a high proportion of infected/off beers there.

Tried from Cask on 30 Jun 2017 at 16:24


6
Appearance - 4 | Aroma - 6 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 4 | Overall - 7

Cask @ the McNeill pub. Clear pale, perhaps a little darker. Mild and easy fer sure. Winelike, mildly tart and fun. Yes, perhaps a little wild thang goen on here. Good stuff, well balanced and easy all over. Very good since I don’t like cask too often.

Tried from Cask on 20 Aug 2015 at 16:37