Bottle. Hazy coppery amber, no head. Pleasant floral notes over a mildly toffee aroma. Medium body, well carbonated. Flavour starts with fruit and toffeeish maltiness and has a nice gentle bitter finish. Overall a fine beer.

Bottle. Clear very pale straw with no head. Grassy hop aroma. Light body, strong carbonation. Flavour is dominated by a etallic hoppy bitterness. Overall it’s OK, but a bit harsh and light on flavour.

Bottle. Poured clear dark redish brown with a big beige head. Aroma of burnt toffee / caramel. Medium body but very fizzy. In fact the fizziness ruined the beer. It poured OK, it didn’t look crazily bubbly but each sip turned to a mouthfull of foam making it hard to taste - something wrong here definitely. The flavour was a fairly laid back stout with burnt / dark caramel and some bitterness in the finish. Overall I was disappointed as I expected more of this brewery. The beer was spoilt by the carbonation, but even then it was a fairly modest stout, perhaps redeemed by some interesting bitterness in the finish.

Pours dark amber with an off-white small head.Nose shows lots of peach and passionfruit hops along with more tropical fruit. Underneath is rich caramel malt.Similar flavours but more malty, with a little alcohol showing and a soft bitterness.Carbonation is a little high.

Bottle, label says 7.2% ABV. Cloudy copper with a large light beige head. Lots of tiny bubbles. Powerful aroma of grapefruit, flowers, ripe nectarines, pine, toffee, earth. Somewhat syrupy mouthfeel. Lots of rich toffee overshadows the pears, dried fruit and nectarines and is followed by piney bitterness. It’s quite bitter, but not so much so as to quite dry out the finish. There’s a bit of alcohol burn there too. Second sedimenty pour softened the plain richness of the toffee a bit. Given what I like about normal Hightail is the lightness and liveliness of the texture I was a bit surprised how much I liked this.

Tap. Honeyed amber with a light beige head that disappeared quite quickly. Aroma has mellow medium dark sugars, some fruit cake. Taste has modest caramel sweetness - there’s little dried fruit action - with a quite sharp bitterness that has an unpleasant metallic note. It’s not thin, but lacks that creamy-verging-on-syrupy feel that beers of this sort often have. Not quite bad enough to make the name apposite.

From a 330ml bottle on 11/4/2010. Has a moderate roasted malt nose, with the roasted, toasty malt flavours dominating when it hits the mouth. Has a touch of dried fruit (raisins) to it, a fair whack of bitterness at the end. A decent beer, but just doesn’t quite come together to really satisfy.

[2/10] Stylish 650ml bottle. Half 16C straight glass, (better) half 14C tulip. Barely hazy copper, small fading light tan head. Nose has caramel, passionfruit, lychees, pine, galangal, citrus and surprisingly prominent alcohol. Very soft mouthfeel. Lingering pine and grapefruit bitterness with mainly caramel and biscuity malt backing it. Spicy finish. It’s certainly hoppy, but there’s a (pleasing to me) reiteration of the house style: an emphasis on texture and depth over intensity. [rerate 3/10] , old rating 3.9] The lack of sophisticated malty flavours tells a bit on subsequent samplings.[6/13] Growler. After a few disappointing bottles of this in the new format, liking this as much as ever. Nothing’s fantastic, but everything works together.

[1/10] Bottle. Pours very deep brown, small stable tan head. Smells of caramel and coffee with some burnt malt notes. A bit too carbonated (which is very unusual for this brewer - they do have some bottle variation). Taste is initially sweet, then there is mild but lingering bitterness. There’s dried fruit, chocolate and salty flavours with roastiness sitting in the background. [3.4]Can - a fine looking one too. Lower carbonation is a fine trade for a head that fades a bit. Less sweet than I recall - OK, this is really quite different - with mocha and gentle roast. No fruit to speak of. Clean and easy-going with a delicate orange-blossom and mild spice touch at the moderately bitter finish. I’ll be drinking a fair bit of this. --- Beer merged from original tick of Rare Breed Surefoot Stout on 14 May 2011 at 07:44 - Score: Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 7. Original review text: Bottle. Black with a small light tan head. Aroma of caramel, roasted malt, grass, some coffee. Smooth mouthfeel. Light roasted taste with lots of milky caramel, some dried fruit and licorice. Maybe a little more caramel than normal Surefoot was - very rich for around 5%.

Pours golden with lively carbonation sustaining an impressive white head.Aroma is faint, but shows some mild spicy and minty hops, some bready wheat and sweet clean malt.Quite clean flavours, and again, quite faint. Sweet clean malt and straw-like wheat first up, followed by quite a strong hoppy bitterness (reminds me of chinook) along with off-putting metallic notes on the finish. Has a certain white wine-like cloying sweetness throughout.Seems watery to me. But as already mentioned, that only adds to its quaff-ability.