6

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

Bottle from SH Jones, Bicester, Oxon consumed at Carol & Haydns Summer Party, Saturday 30th June 2012 Fruity and full bodied with a bitterness that continues. Tangy with a chewy toffee bite, fruitiness continues. Ok with a little softness. Bit dry at the end. A6 A3 T6 P3 Ov12 3.0
Earlier Rating: 5/13/2012 Total Score: 3.1
Cask, gravity at Banbury Beer Festival 10.05.12 Pours amber no head. Toffee is very much evident in the mouth and this has a quite thick mouthfeel. This is pleasant enough but after some very good cider and a great Brew Wharf beer it does fall back into line somewhat and would be trailing those by a considerable margin, though this is an ok Hooky beer. However to put this into context it seems just a little flabby and old fashioned, nothing particularly wrong with that, but its a bit like a porky old time heavyweight fighter in an contest against an up and coming young lean, mean, speedy fighter. Yes it is a Hooky beer and it knows where to aim its shots but you know where they are coming from and the impact of these before you even take a sip, it lacks in the hops department, has too much caramel and toffee malty flavours and is a little leaden. Why rather than giving us a souped up Old Hooky couldn’t they have done something totally unhooky like is my main criticism. Fine. A6 A4 T6 P4 Ov11 3.1