Junipers Ale
Red Rose Brewery

Purchased at the Bacchnalia, a fantastic specialist wine+beer shop in Cambridge. Coming in a 500ml brown bottle, bottlle-conditioned. BBE Aug. 2007, served cool in a straight imperial pint glass.

A: pouring a very static pint of murky, russet-brown tea, with no beer head what-so-ever and very little carbonation detectable.
S: aromas of flowers, sour pears, and a touch of ripe blue berries rest on top of a Mild-like brown-sugary and sweet tea-ish malty backbone. Quite simplistic, and a tad stale as well as damp overall...
T: pretty mixed in flavour, featuring the bitter edge of dark chocolates, licorice (and ground herbs), backed by (yeah...) a touch of berry-ish sourness and longan-fruit tea. A belated flow of mild hop bitterness and a little bitter nuttiness creep up in the end, while the overall dry-ish mouthfeel resembles a Dark Mild.
M&D: the structure of this ale is messed up, while the texture remains watery, showing no signs of fizziness at all. I wonder if the bottle-conditioning process, or the bottling process, has gone wrong. Also there's no telling whether Juniper berries are indeed used in the brew, as this beer's fruitiness is also like that of some other not-so-fresh ordinary bitter... All in all, an interesting beer this is, but desparately in need of more freshness and body in order to be an enjoyable one...