8th July 2009. Mid brown clear beer. Dry and crisp with a sour hop just dominating the malt. Minerally and a little watery. A bit strange. A 2.7 on this sampling. 23rd September 2008. BBE Jabb 08 bottle. Cloudy amber beer. A sweetish start followed by a little fruit in the middle. Finishes with a somewhat spirity malt and a little citrus.

[500ml bottle from the Real Ale Shop, Prior Farm, Wrentham, Suffolk] Pours deep amber with a moderate, but dissipating white head. Tastes initial very bitter, but flavours quickly pile through - autumn leaves, earth, oranges. Made me think of the best bitter ever - think of Harvey’s Sussex Best, and then add on several layers of flavour. But then you breathe out through your nose, and as the alcohol fumes clear your sinuses you realise this ain’t your average best bitter! I’m not normally a fan of beers where the alcohol comes through this strongly, but in this case it actually compliments the flavours rather than overwhelming them. The palatte is, as is often the case with strong beers, a little sticky, but the bitterness comes into its own again and balances out the syrupiness perfectly. The more I drank of this the more I liked it, and the more and faster I wanted to drink it - with this downability at 8.5% it’s one of the most dangerous beers I’ve come across! An absolutely top-notch beer; I’d highly recommend this one!

Cask conditioned gravity, White Cliffs BF 08. Copper colour with lasting bubbly beige head. Some raspberry/strawberry aroma. Decent strong ale. Syrupy. Slightly minty from the alcohol. Drinkable, even at 8.5%

[i] Bottle from ’onlyfineales’ [/i] Pours hazy light amber with medium carbonation. Aroma quite sweet and malty some yeast but also reminds me of werthers original and hard boiled barley sweets. Tastes suprisingly bitter but the buterscotch is also there nice warming alcohol although this isn’t too prominent, impresses for not being to cloying considering its strength, a very enjoyable beer that I really liked.