Stoked Up
Wissey Valley Brewery

Purchased at the bottled-beer stall in the Sussex Beer Festival, Hove, March 06. The bottle states that it's a "bottle-conditioned ale with elderflower", coming in a 500ml weizen-style brown glass bottle. Served lightly chilled in a straight imperial pint glass.

A: pours a hazy, dark orangey amber hue, coming with a souffle-like rocky, creamy head, slowly breaking down like a souffle~~ settling to a 1cm thick froth and sustaining there throughout the drink; carbonation is fierce/lively.
S: dusty and ashy hop resins are quite prevalent upfront; sourly fruity, floral scent and spicy yeasty hints rest on an underlying bed of semi-sweet, almost cane-sugar like maltiness. Elderflower, which the bottle states is added to this brew, is not so pronounced, though. Very light, or overly restrained aroma overall.
T: sourly yeasty flavour upfront and very fizzy-textured, like a poorly-managed home-brew in a bottle... The sour, damp and woody yeastiness overwhelms the whole palate, preventing my taste-buds from discerning weaker flavours apart from citrussy hops... pretty clean and tart finish. After warming, the less fizzy palate shows more floral and dryish elements mixed with the citrus-fruitiness, but still is too restrained.
M&D: simply put, the yeastiness in this bottle-conditioned beer is not ideal at all, and proves damaging to the aroma, flavour and overall balance. I wish I could try this beer on cask to appreciate the original idea of adding elderflowers to it; in bottles this beer is not appetising, as happens to many other inexperienced British micro-breweries which so eagerly try to bottle-condition their real ales nowadays. I appreciate their well-intentioned efforts, though. Give them time.