Monkman's Slaughter Ale
The Great Yorkshire Brewery

Monkman's Slaughter AleMonkman's Slaughter Ale
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From:
The Great Yorkshire Brewery
 
England, United Kingdom
Style:
Extra Special / Strong Bitter (ESB)
ABV:
6%
Score:
81
Avg:
3.52 | pDev: 16.48%
Reviews:
70
Ratings:
75
Status:
Active
Rated:
May 25, 2014
Added:
Mar 25, 2001
Wants:
  2
Gots:
  0
No description / notes.
Recent ratings and reviews. | Log in to view more ratings + sorting options.
Ratings by bryanbrick:
Photo of bryanbrick
Reviewed by bryanbrick from California

4.1/5  rDev +16.5%
look: 4.5 | smell: 4.5 | taste: 4 | feel: 3.5 | overall: 4
No dating on bottle.

Pours a wonderful and quite surprizing head. Cream white and persistent throughout. Not used to seeing this in english ESBs. I like it. Back that up with a roasted chestnut color, hazy from the bottle conditioning and this is one pretty beer.

Great nose as well. With a lot more hops than expected. I expected much more malty sweetness here but it really fails to develop. Full of pine cone, rye cracker and preserved lemon. A great intro to this beer.

Flavorwise this is a tad unusal. Not your typical ESB. With a bit more of a citrusy aspect and much less of the bitter malt profile. Lots of veggie aspects here, but in a nice way. Like bitter greens, think radicchio and arugula with a slightly sweet lemon vinagrette. But to most that is going to sound a bit weird, and it is. But I like it. Surely refreshing on a really hot day in Oakland, which today is.

My biggest issue is the mouthfeel with slightly out of wack carbonation, on the high side, this has some edge to it. Surely not the creamy ESB profile I'm used to.

I could drink this over and over again. The sense of acidity is a nice refreshing aspect and will play out well if more than a few of these made there way over my teeth and gums and into my ever expanding belly.
Apr 21, 2009
More User Ratings:
 
Rated: 3.5 by Latarnik from New Jersey

May 25, 2014
 
Rated: 3.5 by Andy_Luft from England

Mar 04, 2014
 
Rated: 3.5 by BillRoth from Maryland

Dec 07, 2013
 
Rated: 4.25 by jborg from New York

Jul 09, 2013
Photo of Jeffo
Reviewed by Jeffo from Netherlands

3.03/5  rDev -13.9%
look: 3.5 | smell: 3 | taste: 3 | feel: 3 | overall: 3
Got this one at the Bier Palais in Belgium.

From a 500ml bottle into a pint glass.

APPEARANCE: Pours a small, medium looking, off-white head with good retention. Head fades to a wisp and ring. Deep brown or rosewood red in color with no carbonation evident. A slight wisp remains leaving dots of lacing down the glass.

SMELL: Same as Two Pints, but much more mild, surprisingly. Some pale malts, butterscotch and caramel, with a touch of floral hop aromas. Nice, but not impressive.

TASTE: Again, similar to Two Pints, but simply less of everything. Pale and caramel malts with some floral hops and some bitterness at the finish. Bitter floral hops and some sweet caramel malt linger on the palate, but not as bold enough to make it memorable.

PALATE: Medium body and medium carbonation. Semi-creamy on the palate, smooth enough, goes down fine and finishes dry on the palate.

OVERALL: An average bitter, and somewhat disappointing after having their wonderful Two Pints Bitter. Another example that bigger is not always better. Skip this one and try its younger brother.
Dec 07, 2011
 
Rated: 4 by Rochefort10nh from New Hampshire

Nov 28, 2011
Photo of froghop
Reviewed by froghop from Washington

3.45/5  rDev -2%
look: 3.5 | smell: 3.5 | taste: 3.5 | feel: 3 | overall: 3.5
pours a clear dark brown-orange with a large beige head, and some lacing.

smell is floral, spice, caramel, and some sour malt.

taste is tart, sour malt, caramel, spice, and hops in the back, ends tart and a little bitter.

overall a little stroner than your average ESB.
Jun 27, 2010
Photo of dartfulavenger
Reviewed by dartfulavenger from England

1.4/5  rDev -60.2%
look: 2 | smell: 2 | taste: 1 | feel: 2 | overall: 1
Cropton Monksman's Slaughter used to be one of the best beers out there in my opinion.

Cropton brewery have recently started mass-producing for the large supermarkets. This has resulted in them lowering the quality of their beers by substituting real hops for synthetic chemical essences. The result of this is immediately obvious especially in its inferior taste with a false sweetness lingering behind the after-taste.

Real beer should be really real,
not pretend real!
May 27, 2010
Photo of Brandt
Reviewed by Brandt from Montana

3.15/5  rDev -10.5%
look: 3.5 | smell: 3.5 | taste: 3 | feel: 3 | overall: 3
this beer poured out a trange brown color with pretty profuse head, it fizzed up and even overflowed. it settled out to a rocky egshell colored head

the smell was mostly a dry type aroma with a firm betterness and a metalic tone.

this tasted almost sour (not in the good way though) but had some good malt still. the hops tasted sour as well

the finish of this med-light bodied beer was pretty neutral with nothing really taking over. it is possible that this bottle was bad but i don't think that this one should have tasted the way it did, i'd have to try another to know.
Nov 17, 2009
Photo of Reidrover
Reviewed by Reidrover from Oregon

4/5  rDev +13.6%
look: 4 | smell: 4 | taste: 4 | feel: 4 | overall: 4
500ml with "CAMRA says this is real ale" on the side. Appearance, darkish brown strong carbonation "strings" lush coffee and creme coloured head. Very intresting aroma, the usual English malts done to a tee, plus odd sour sweetness that is very pleasing.Pipe tobacco and sherry. I love the way good English beer smell and this is no exception. Wow this has a rather tart flavour to it even sour. I like it underneath is the malts and English hop( a little). Nice bubble refreshing mouthfeel to it. This has to be the oddest "ESB " ever. But i like it a lot and for $2.49 a bottle a great deal.
May 10, 2009
Photo of joerodiii
Reviewed by joerodiii from New York

3.69/5  rDev +4.8%
look: 3 | smell: 4 | taste: 3.5 | feel: 3.5 | overall: 4
Medium brown (almost caramel colored) with minimal head.
Aroma is of crystal malt, biscuit, and mild English hops.
Taste is somewhat tart with noticeable caramel that lingers after swallowing. Light body and moderate carbonation round out the taste.

While no one thing about this beer stands out as incredible, it makes for an enjoyable drinking session and reminds me that ESB's are a great style that I usually pass by in favor of bigger beers.
Apr 12, 2009
Photo of puboflyons
Reviewed by puboflyons from New Hampshire

4.08/5  rDev +15.9%
look: 4.5 | smell: 4 | taste: 4 | feel: 4.5 | overall: 4
From a 1 pt. .9 fl. oz. bottle with no lot number or expiration date available. Sampled on April 10, 2009. It pours a very dark brown tone with hints of ruby-red, slow moving carbonation and a whole lot of foamy beige head with the texture of shaving cream. Lacing is evident everywhere. The aroma is a balance of sweet malts, licorice, and something that I akin to Kahlua liquor. The mouthfeel is thick. The taste is bold in malts and a touch of alcohol but not overpowering. There is a kind of raisiny aftertaste but it works well. This was smooth and well done.
Apr 10, 2009
Photo of Vancer
Reviewed by Vancer from Illinois

2.65/5  rDev -24.7%
look: 3.5 | smell: 3.5 | taste: 2 | feel: 3 | overall: 2.5
Label says bottle conditioned - but no dating, bummer. Pours a clean and crisp looking deep amber/copper into the Bitburger pilsner glass. A strong pour produced a mediocre tan head, died like a 3 foot putt.

Nice woody resins in the aroma, but unfortunately did not carry over into the quaff. A sour funk dominated, with some underlying hints of woody malt.

Medium bodied - but this is a one and done for me - that funky taste is not for me. Man, need some label dating to find out if it sat too long on the shelf.
Mar 19, 2009
Photo of alexgash
Reviewed by alexgash from Connecticut

3.53/5  rDev +0.3%
look: 4 | smell: 3.5 | taste: 3.5 | feel: 3.5 | overall: 3.5
500 ml bottle.

Slightly hazy dark boot leather brown. Pinkie finger of tight, light khaki head. Decent lacing. Nose of butterscotch-tinged fruits: apples, cherries, and maybe blackberries. Very mild hop aroma comes off as slightly herbal and minty. There's also a light sour twang to everything. The taste confirms this. Starts off with toasted grains, but quickly shows off mildly tart cherries and apples. Faintly sweet caramel and butterscotch malt notes follow. Finishes with light citrus hop bitterness and more fruit tartness. Moderate body with a relatively creamy feel. I reckon that this bottle was filled with slightly infected ale, but the end result is kind of appetizing in a wild ale sort of way.
Jan 07, 2009
Photo of bendit
Reviewed by bendit from Canada (ON)

1.57/5  rDev -55.4%
look: 4 | smell: 2 | taste: 1 | feel: 2.5 | overall: 1
This beer has an overpowering apple sourness to it, and it completely surprised me, I thought I had a bottle that had gone bad.

I had to immediately pull up other reviews to compare notes with other drinkers.

If this was not labelled as ESB, maybe a cider instead, I wouldn't hate it, but it seems to be the exact opposite of an ESB.
Jan 04, 2009
Photo of gfreed
Reviewed by gfreed from Massachusetts

3.97/5  rDev +12.8%
look: 4 | smell: 4.5 | taste: 4 | feel: 3.5 | overall: 3.5
A very interesting beer! Pours a nice mahogany color with a fluffy hat that stays a long time, erupting with loads of apples and lemons. Little fizzy bubbles light the beer up very nicely. There's plenty of malt up front along with apples and cider, with a very bright smack of hops as it goes down. There's a certain degree of sourness present, too, just tart enough to catch your attention but not enough to make you wince. Rather complicated yet light and quite refreshing. Quite a surprise and well worth trying.
Dec 12, 2008
Photo of BedetheVenerable
Reviewed by BedetheVenerable from Missouri

3.35/5  rDev -4.8%
look: 4 | smell: 4 | taste: 3 | feel: 3.5 | overall: 3
Presentation: 16.9oz brown bottle with a nice little ditty about the beer.

Appearance: Poured into my new Samuel Smith's pint glass, this beer pours a somewhat hazy rich chestnut brown color with a little bit of yeast in suspension. The head is light tan, thick and creamy, and soon fades to a thin (but quite persistant) cap.

Smell: Much fruitier than I was expecting; there's crisp apple peel, as well as strong hints of blackcurrant. As the beer warms slightly, faint notes of earthy hops and minerality emerge, with just a touch of caramel malts. Unique but quite nice.

Taste: Not what I was expecting. Very tart, sour-apple like quality, with apple peel in the background. The amount of fruit and the sharpness of the apple flavors aren't bad really, but just very out-of-the-ordinary for the style. There are almost British Dry Cider notes in here. Hop flavor is minimal, but there's a substantial and slightly puckering hop bitterness. In the very background there's a bit of roasted and caramel malt, but it's completely overshadowed by the fruitiness.

Mouthfeel: Medium-bodied, smooth, and tart.

Drinkability: Medium. It's not bad, but it doesn't make me crave another really.

Conclusion: I don't know what I was expecting from this exactly, but it didn't strike me as the typical North Yorkshire (i.e. Sam Smiths, Black Sheep, etc) ESB-type ale. It's definitely interesting, and the fruity aromas (especially the blackcurrant are really nice) but in the end it needs more balance between fruitiness, malt, and hops. Not something I'd buy regularly by any means, but something I'd probably try again for something different. Also, this might go well with a roasted pork loin with some kind of fruit garnish or sauce.
Dec 11, 2008
Photo of Offa
Reviewed by Offa from California

4.51/5  rDev +28.1%
look: 4.5 | smell: 3.5 | taste: 5 | feel: 5 | overall: 4.5
This is an interesting beer with a lot of complex flavour.

Very deep red brown, it has a big light tan head slowly shrinking to a thin, permanent foamy head and leaving some nice lace.

The aroma is strong but not entirely to my liking. It has a strong sweet-sour fruit character with turned prunes, pears, earth, and a hint of toasted sweet brown bread.

The taste is similar but much more to my liking and very complex with a lot going on. It has a rich sweet-sour fruit character with prunes and baked apples that have turned, licorice, dry topastiness and leafiness in the finish, hints of wine, nuts, and tamarind-heavy steak sauce, and slightly caramelly. It's mostly sweet-sour, a little tart, balanced with a little bitterness, and yet also dry. The character is rich, strongly flavoured yet still restrained, very lively and complex, zesty, with a lot of different elements blending well and making it hard really to pick out specific elements. Nothing I can say quite describes it. it becomes better with every sip.

This is nice to finally have a new,fresh bottle as I had first tried this about a year ago, but the bottle looked a bit worn and was totally off. The character that I have now experienced was evident, but it was very, very sour, yeasty, acrid, and totally off.
Dec 01, 2008
Photo of albern
Reviewed by albern from Massachusetts

2.73/5  rDev -22.4%
look: 4 | smell: 3.5 | taste: 2.5 | feel: 2.5 | overall: 2
This is one ESB I will be glad to skip over. The operative words to describe this beer are metallic and hickory. There is an unpleasant sourishness to the beer that I can't get beyond. The beer pours a very nice fairly clear amber brown color with a nice sturdy head, retention, and lacing. The aroma is a tad musty, wild yeast sourish, with some unpleasant phenols. The taste is very complex, I will give the beer its due on that score. The beer opens up with a toasted, smokey, somewhat tart, citrus rind zest, this segues into a not so pleasant and sourish caramel and hickory, and the beer finishes out with a more metallic taste that is just unpleasant. Perhaps this beer didn't make it across the pond the way it was intended, but mine is just not all that digestible. There is a full tongue coating for mouthfeel, if that is what you fancy. When I poured the remainder down the drain, I got a pretty good whiff of vinegar, so I think my bottle was just plain bad.
Sep 19, 2008
Monkman's Slaughter Ale from The Great Yorkshire Brewery
Beer rating: 81 out of 100 with 75 ratings