Bottle shared with D&C at the 1st Ipswich bottle share (West Country themed). Poured golden with a decent sized bubbly white head. Aroma is fruity, citrus, straw, touch of caramel. Light/medium sweetness, medium bitterness. Finish has a citrus/bitter edge. Not bad.

Cask at GBBF 2016. It pours darkest brown with a small beige head. The aroma is rich, soft, bitter- sweet, roasted malt and chocolate powder. The taste is bitter, roasted malt, lots of charred wood, burnt toast, liquorice and some astringency with a very dry finish. Medium body and fine carbonation. Too burnt and astringent in my opinion. I had hoped for more.

Cask at GBBF ’16, day one, 09/08/16. Dark mahogany brown with a beige head. Nose is roast malt, chocolate dusting, toffee, biscuit, light charr. Taste comprises tangy dark fruits, liquorice, light cocoa rub, pinch of spice. Medium bodied, moderate carbonation, moderately drying close. Adequate stout.

Sampled @ GBBF day 1. Very dark brown to black color, average sized beige head. Smell and taste malts, quite some dark roasted malts, malt bitter, lightly iron. Hmm ok beer.

Gbbf. Sehr dunkel orange braunes Bier. Geruch schokoladig süß malzig. Geschmack schokoladig röstmalzig, wenig Kaffee.

Cask at GBBF 2016 09/08/2016. An opaque black chestnut brown coloured pour with a loose dirty tan head . Aroma is black malts, toasted pine, citrus hop, American c hop,. Flavour is composed of woody charred malts, bitter pine needle toasted earthy malts. Palate is semi sweet, moderate carbonation, slightly thin. Potential black ipa.

Bottle obtained through a professional relationship, cheers Jeremy and Sabine! Mine simply says "Quantock Stag" without the "Royal", but I assume this is the same beer. Gusher, even quite strongly so, thick foam crept out of the bottle neck fifteen minutes after opening. Very heavily cobweb-lacing, egg-white, thick and stable head over an initially almost clear, warm orange blonde beer with slight pinkish hue, calmly sparkling. Herbal aroma of white pepper, lime zest, dried orange peel, fresh ’iron-like’ parsley and iron ’tout court’, nettles or other garden weeds, bitter honey, toasted bread, hints of soap, jute, dry tree leaves, slight caramel, green apple, roasted peanuts, some dried banana when warming up, unripe berries - this bouquet is like a walk through a meadow full of wild flora. Crisp, clean onset, spritzy due to high carbonation (not surprising seen the gushing), some dried fruits, a tad sourish in a very soft way but otherwise quite neutral with very low sweetness or fruitiness; overcarbonation numbs the tongue a bit but a firm, nutty and toasted, supple malt body comes to its full development after that. All the while, herbal, grassy and floral ’Euro’ hops linger in the background, waiting to burst, which happens in the finish - yet still in a well-mannered, balanced way; they provide a long, drying, very peppery and leafy ’noble’ bitterness as well as retronasal floral and herbal aromas. Quenching and appetizing, the gushing is a bit over the top of course, but other than that, this is a very enjoyable, balanced, drying ale. It is not far removed from the ever more elusive ’EPA’ style but clearly a lot more hop forward so I tend to disagree with the ’ESB’ qualification given here: this is one of those rare, truly ’English style’ IPAs, directly linked to the origins of the style. I guess (too) many people associate ’IPA’ with the lush, extremely aromatic American style these days, but we should not forget that the roots of this style, or at least its name, lie in merry old England, where all pale ales of the late 18th and 19th centuries received a firm hop dosis for storage, regardless of whether they were intended for export or not. This one is a good reminder of this historical fact. Recommended in that sense, even in spite of the gushing.

Cask handpull at County Hotel Spoons Ashford. Hazy gold lasting white head. some biscuit some tart citrus hop bit of Sherbet some ok condition.

From a very English 50 cl bottle, acquired through Jeremy and Sabine, cheers! Strongly cobweb-lacing, pale yellowish white, moussy head leaving a medium thick rim on the edge and a closed blanket over the liquid, colour is a cristal clear, pure orangey amber with no visible fizz. Aroma has a slight ’stale cat pee’ lightstruck effect but fortunately this smell remains in the background and fades very quickly, allowing the true bouquet to shine: field flowers, dried sage, freshly toasted bread, roasted walnut, fresh thyme somewhere, ’natural’ iron, red apple, wormwood leaves, olive oil with dried Mediterranean herbs, dried grapefruit peel. Crisp onset with the typically Anglo-Saxon ’clean’ fruitiness, some subdued hints of apple peel, fresh bell pepper, dried berries, very little sweetness if any at all, minerally and generally neutral but with a touch of hop bitterness already announcing itself; carbo is soft and just fit for the style, mouthfeel is very supple, slick, light and a bit oily. Toasted malts make up the middle phase as expected, a bit nutty, bitterish like burnt bread with an ever so slight metallic tinge, supporting the announced hop bitterness which is the true star of this show, consisting of old-fashioned Euro noble hops yielding a notably resinous, earthy, floral, spicy bitterness in the finish, both in taste and in retronasal aromas. The flowers, chamomille- and violet-like, keep hanging around in the nose for a while, as the juicy, bitterishly toasted malts proceed their way into the throat. In these American-inspired experimental craft beer times, it is good to revisit classic European traditions every now and then, and this one clearly embodies the old English ’best bitter’ tradition as good as any of the more familiar names in this intermediate subcategory of the good old bitter style (think Sussex Best Bitter or Black Sheep Best Bitter). This kind of commitment to tradition should remind us of the fact that without all these noble European traditions, there would not have been a craft beer revolution. This particular example therefore demands respect, and justly so: technically perfectly executed, true to its style and applying the Target and East Kent Goldings hops in an elegant way, balancing them with toasted malt bitterness, resulting in a drying, quenching bitter with very high drinkability. I can imagine this is a lot better when cask conditioned, though, as should be the case with all traditional English bitters, but this almost goes without saying. In general: exemplary for its particular substyle and very accomplished as such.