Clear 500ml bottle: 5.0% ABV. Poured into an ’Abbot Ale’ glass tankard to make it feel at home! Good solid amber body, clear and bright, looks inviting. A well formed, cream coloured, foaming head sat on top. What a pity the head had a retension span of a five year old. Expected a more pronounced hop nose, it is hoppy, but nothing like those monster hopped beers the US is currently producing. The aroma is of summer fruits, so the aromatic hops worked well. As the beer warmed a maltier smell began to eminate from the beer, making it seem sweeter in the nose. The bittering hops also do their bit, because the beer has a pleasing bitterness without going over the top. This isn’t all about hops though, the malts (hidden in the smell at first) are detectable from the first sip, or gulp. Caramel like molasses move the beer above a lot of IPA’s in my opinion. This is one of the sweetest IPA’s I’ve ever had and I like it, the hop bitterness stays longer in the mouth than the malty flavours and as the mouth drys the hops completely dominate. The combination of the two tastes compliment each other very well in this brew. Very drinkable indeed.

Clear 355cl bottle of a deep golden amber beer, best before the end of Mar 2011. Reviewed on 13th Feb 2011. Poured into a Greene King badged chalice. Looked fine, clear and bright, on top a small wispy white head. Malty aroma, hides the hops completely, the taste follows, very little hop content to be found until the mouth begins to dry towards the end of the sip. Interestingly different in my eyes, certainly the sweetest, maltiest IPA I’ve ever had. I am not a fan of the way Greene King conduct their bussiness, but some of their beers are good: this one being typical of the type I like (on the fairly sweet side and malty).

Brewed exclusively for the 2011 Wetherspoon Spring beer festival, according to the blurb in the tasting notes: which is when I took these notes. Challenger and First Gold hops give this beer a great hoppy aroma and taste. The clear amber body and thin white head look good and the dry aftertaste and bitterness given by the aforementioned hop content produce a very fine beer indeed. I am not a huge fan of this brewery in general, but this and some other beers they brew are in fact very good.

Half pint, hand pulled into a standard UK half pint sleeve: The Old Red Lion on Old Holborn, London being the venue of this review in Oct 2011. Pours a nice deep, dark brown, a full white crown sat above, lacing ensued from the said head as the beer level fell. Malts, sweet malty molasses in the nose, with just a touch of hop floral notes to take away some of the malty sweetness. The taste was very simular to the smells, malts, but roasted rather than sweet, the hops now asserting their bitterness a bit more, giving a fairly well balanced brew, but still on the sweet side. This isn’t as exciting as I hoped for, decent, but no world beater, a special beer for halloween? Nothing special about it at all.

My bottled review of this beer (Nov 2008) reads a lot differently to this: with one or two trends common! Hand pulled pint in some random pub (The Anchor), Cambridge, England in late Nov 2011. ‘Late hopped for a mellow fruity flavour’ according to the brewery: let’s see if I agree. Dark Chestnut brown/red with a cream coloured crown of foam; looked OK. Malts in the aroma, roasted ones, add some candied fruit and nuts for good measure. The flavours also on the malty side, again with some hints of dried fruits and nuts: on the sweeter side more than dry or citrusy in taste. The body was thinner than it looked, no true depth at all considering the brewery claim it is a ‘Winter Warmer’. Nothing wrong with it, a dark coloured bitter with a pleasant enough blend of ingredients, easy to drink and inoffensive: however I couldn’t find any evidence of that ‘Late hopped for a mellow fruity flavour’ stuff. As an overview: just another Greene King beer to flood the market with, most likely made from a regular base brew and tinkered with.

Came across this beer at ‘The Old Spring’ in Cambridge, England late Nov 2011: pump clip called it ’London Glory’ . Having never heard of it before I decided to order a pint from the young lady behind the bar. Hand pulled by the said young lady into a Greene King IPA badged pint sleeve. The beer was an amber colour with a medium depth (quarter of an inch) of white head: made up of tight bubbles, it looked fine. The nose a blend of citrusy hops and malty caramel esters: nothing very strong, but a slight aroma when really searched for. Nothing huge in the taste area, some hints of malts if I’m being kind: with some floral hop content so weak I had trouble detecting it. Yet another Greene King product that seems to be brewed from some base wort and then tweaked to be a new beer. It was my first beer of a long weekend drinking mission and although I quite enjoyed its blandness because it quenched my thirst and prepared me for what was to follow, I’ll never have had another one by choice.

Bottled 500ml (Stockmann Tallinn, BB 06/2012)
Deep amber color, small beige head. Light toffee and nutty notes, prominent English hops. But also some cardboard. Light to medium-bodied. Dry, almost astrigent minty flavor in front. Harsh bitterness, wood and nuttyness. Caramel maltyness in the back. Aftertaste is nutty-hoppy. Unbalanced and restless.

500ml bottle. Pours gold with a large frothy head. Aroma has a little skunky lemon, grass and biscuit malt. Taste has some biscuit and grass to start. Sharp lemon and butter in the finish.