(View previous instalments here)
Jump Ship – Goosewing
This beer has a deep honey colour, with a small amount of head that disappeared very quickly. It has a smooth and inviting hoppy aroma, and I was feeling refreshed before even taking a sip. The flavour does fall a bit short, sadly – it’s a little on the sharp, metallic side. Karen’s assessment was firstly “Tangy. Sour.” and then she said “Bitter” exactly four times.
Butcombe – Goram IPA Zero
This is a clear and dark golden beer with little to no head. The smell is a nice balance of malt and hops, with neither of them overpowering. I passed it to Karen for a sip, and she made The Face and said “Yeah. Beer.” She’s getting less and less prone to excessive loquaciousness in these reviews, isn’t she? I loved this beer – a really dependable sort of IPA that goes down very easily and will please most drinkers.
Stiegl 0.0
As you can see, this is a pale beer. Karen helpfully pointed out that it looked like a really healthy piss, to which my reaction is (a) if that’s what her piss looks like, then she should see a specialist, and (b) maybe her role in these reviews has ceased to be helpful.
This is a lovely-looking beer anyway, with a nice creamy head that stops short of being silly. It’s got a bit of a wheatbeery smell, and the flavour is a little sour, with elements of wheatbeeritude crossed with a pilsner. Karen remarked that she can indeed taste the sourness, but didn’t find it as unpleasant as she often does. All in all, a pretty decent beer!
Basic Booch
This is NOT beer, it’s a mix of kombucha and tea and I could have saved us all a bunch of time by just pouring it directly down the sink. I don’t think I’ll ever understand the appeal of kombucha. Why would I buy a can of kombucha for a couple of quid when I can buy a large bottle of vinegar for far, far less?
This is a sea salt IPA which smells nice and fresh, and fairly delicately hopped. It has an intersesting appearance – very cloudy, with many large white floating particles. They didn’t sink to the bottom like sediment, but seemed to be a deliberate feature. The beer has some head, but this dropped away quite quickly. The flavour is very bitter, and caused Karen to make The Face, which is something that we see less and less of these days. She complained for a protracted period of time afterwards – ah, it’s just like the old days. The saltiness is definitely present, but it’s a coarse sort of saltiness. I felt like I was drinking a fishing village. Borderline on the scoring for this one, but I’m feeling generous.
I’ve been waiting for a long time for this one. This absolutely looks and smells the part. The colour and consistency are an exact match for the alcoholic version. As far as flavour is concerned, it’s very close but not quite identical. Compared to the alcoholic version, I detected a very slight sour quality. On the whole though, I declare this a huge success.
This is a coffee porter, and is a type of beer that always gets my hopes up, because when done well, it can result in a really complex and hearty flavour. 
I can’t read much of this can, as it’s all in German, but I can recognise a picture of a lemon when I see one. There was a big hit of lemon smell when cracking open this can, and a very voluminant head which settled down fairly quickly. I passed it to Karen for her thoughts, and she thought that the lemoniness was subtle, but I disagree. It’s very lemony, but with enough beeriness that it manages to stay just short of the bounding line where I feel like I’m just drinking lemonade.
This is a raspberry Berliner Weisse, and is unsurprisingly very pink. The head dropped away very quickly. It’s a very tangy and raspberry-forward drink, without much beery quality at all really. Not bad, for what it is, I suppose.
You can see the thick head in the photo here. This one smells very pungent and malty. It has a good flavour too – a bit sweet, but not so far as to be sickly. I offered it to Karen for a sip but she declined, as she was carrying a stinking cold at the time and didn’t want to share it with me. I ended up getting it anyway, of course.
I took a few days off of drinking beer to nurse my cold. I often find that when I have a cold, my sense of smell is dulled, which also impacts on my ability to enjoy food and drink. So, it seemed like a waste of time to attempt to review beers when I couldn’t really appreciate them. As my cold receded, I picked back up with this. This is an odd little beer with some orange and coriander in it. The head faded very quickly indeed, and by the time I was ready to take a photo there was basically none left. As I poured the beer, dollops of sediment tumbled out – there had been nothing on the label to warn me about this, so I was stuck with it.
This is a medium orange colour, and quite cloudy. There was some head when poured, but this dissipated quickly. The smell is very tangy with a hint of orange. I found the flavour to be a little disappointing, as it was quite watery. There was a hint of that oranginess in the flavour, and a bit of beerishness, but really not enough of either. Karen had a sip, and didn’t really know what to make of it.
This has a deep brown colour, almost ruby. The head on this is fantastic, and hung around for a decent while. It smells fruity and a bit pungent, like a beer festival. The flavour is equally robust, with a hint of banana. Karen said “this just tastes like beer” but didn’t pull The Face. I could very happily go for this again.
This has a deep orange colour and is very cloudy. The head is nice, and persisted for a good few minutes. The smell is very strongly of rose, like granny’s bathwater. The flavour is also very floral but also with quite a lot of bitterness. It’s still pretty refreshing though, and hits the spot nicely on a searing hot day.
This IPA is a dark amber colour, and is clear with a satisfactory head. The smell is intriguing but well balanced, with a mix of sharp hoppiness and smooth malt. The flavour is surprising and unconventional, like a mixture of citrus fruit with something deep and cereal. Very intriguing stuff.
This is a West Coast IPA, very clear with a deep colour. The smell is a bit bitter with a striking roasted quality. Karen had a try, and pulled The Face (first time I’ve seen her do that in a long time). She says it’s way too bitter, and yes it is fairly bitter, but my personal experience of drinking this was that it was comforting and quite nicely fruity.
This is an insanely lively beer, as you can probably tell by the photo. When I removed the cap, it erupted like a silly geyser, and I managed to fill this pint glass up with 1cm of liquid and the rest of it froth. I took this photo once it had settled down to a slightly more sensible level. The head didn’t take too long to dissipate and vanish entirely.
This is thick and creamy, pale and cloudy, with that recognisable medicinal Hoegaarden smell and flavour, a bit orangey and weird. It’s slightly less dense and intense than the regular Hoegaarden, but you know maybe that’s not such a bad thing.
This beer has a dark, orangey colour, and is cloudy with a creamy pour. As you can see, it has slightly novel packaging in that the bottle is wrapped in paper. The smell is fabulous – really malty and warming. The flavour is also a grand experience, though perhaps a little more bitter than I’d like. It’s certainly not lacking for impact.
This is a hazy IPA with a pale colour and a reasonable head. It smells suitably fruity and sour, as you would expect from this sort of drink. However, the flavour is far, far sourer than the smell would set you up to expect. Karen is a big fan, and said “if beer was pleasant, that would be a pleasant beer.” It’s great, but for me, it’s not one of my favourites.
This beer has quite a deep amber colour and is clear with a head that is decent on pouring, but quickly fading. The smell is floral, but also with a dense darkness. The flavour is absolutely fantastic. I’ve remarked before in these reviews that there are loads of great alcohol-free wheat beers and light IPAs, and some decent lagers too, but the offerings for dark, autumnal beers are generally quite disappointing. This one, however, is a real winner in that category, and I can definitely see myself putting a handful of these in with my next order.
