Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 7
500ml bottle - third in the gift set, pitch black body, thin white head. Not too much in the nose, but the usual coffee, roast malts and bit of smoke make it not too unpleasant. The first taste has similar, a bit of bitter chocolate extra, very pleasant palate. Nice drink, and I must say far from the sub-par Christmas fare I’ve been suffering this year.
Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 6 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 6.5
500ml bottle - Part of a gift set, this pours a nice clear golden, with a healthy bit of carbonation giving a thin white head. Nose is quite sweet, bit of toffee apple in there, with some lighter fruity notes hidden at the back. The taste is quite thin, an initial fresh kick of grassiness is soon gone, a short bitter-sweet finish. I guess this one would make an ideal summer brew... but Christmas? Not really.
Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 4 | Overall - 7
1st January 2011
9.0% bottle. Cloudy amber beer. Decent frothy white head. Airy dry palate. Tangerine - orange nose. Slightly chalky malt. Bitter orange and tangerine. Sweeter orange before the dry finish. Nice flavour but over dry.
Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 6 | Texture - 4 | Overall - 5
1st January 2011
Very dark brown beer, small brown head. Light semi crisp palate, dry. Tangy dark malt, slight roast. Coffee. Trace of chocolate. A little smoke. Appley fruit before the dry finish with prickly carbonation. Lots going on here but it doesn’t hang together. Over dry as well.
Stuu (34525) ticked Lovely Pear from Staffordshire Brewery (prev Leek) 13 years ago
Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 6 | Flavor - 5 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 4
19th July 2010
Hazy amber beer, little white head. Semi dry palate. Very tangy fruit, dry orange and cherry, turns somewhat medicinal. Finishes dry with a little bitterness in the aftertaste. Not unpleasant but doesn’t seem quite right.
Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 6 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 7.5
Brown 500ml bottle (unfiltered) drank two months after its best by date (Dec 2008). Poured into a UK pint sleeve glass. Very pale, a golden lager colour, but with small yeast and sediment particals flaoting within the body. A huge white head sat on top. A heavy yeast aroma meets the nose, nothing else gets a look in. Spritzy and tangy feel, very lively and heavily carbonated. There is a hint of hops in the taste but the yeast in the aroma takes over in the taste as well. Dry and refreshing, getting dryer in the aftertaste. More body than the colour suggests, light in appearance but not in anything else.
Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 5 | Flavor - 3 | Texture - 4 | Overall - 2
27th August 2009
Hazy gold beer. Strong nose of bubblegum - Bazooka Joe! Palate is crispish but also manages to be watery. Tastes of bubblegum and not much else apart from insipid cherry. Finishes dry with the bubblegum still going. Fine if you like Bazooka Joe Cherry - otherwise a bit of a mess.
Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 4 | Flavor - 5 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 4
Brown 500ml bottle, the beer is bottle conditioned and the sediment could be clearly seen through the bottle, sat at the base looking up. Best before the end of Jan 2010, drank on warm sunny evening in April 2009. Poured into a vase shaped pint glass (Old Speckled Hen). The label claims it is OK for Veggies and Vegans, so no fishy or meaty bits in this beer then! Some of the yeast sediment moved and tried to join the beer in my glass, but I poured carefully and very little got out. The body is a bright golden yellow, almost lagerlike. A small white wispy head sat on top. The beer was very light for a traditional English Bitter, but more and more brewers are producing these golden brews nowadays. Floral aroma with citrus hints to the fore, couldn’t detect any hops, yeast or malts. The taste was a bit boring, no bite or strength of flavours. Just a bog standard bitter, a little flat to be honest. Wheat and barley used in the brew, no suggestion of them in the taste for me. A big disappointment for me, I hate decrying a small brewer, but this didn’t do it for me at all. I have a few more bottles from this brewery, I hope they are better than this effort.
Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 7
500ml bottle, to be drank before the end of Jun 2009, drank on the 16th (Jun 2009), so two weeks life remained. Bottle conditioned and to be drank at 13 degrees C. Poured into a UK pint glass, leaving the sediment in the bottle. Lovely looking beer, deep ruby red, clear and bright, huge foaming head, light tan in colour. Malts and un-sweet molasses hit the nose. Then the sweetness of the molasses come to the fore as the beer warms a little. Malty, yeasty and interesting taste. Chocolate, dark chocolate anyway and liquorice flavours blend together nicely. Not as rich as I’d expected, but OK, a little thin if I’m being honest. Very pleasant beer from a fairly local brewery