Off The Rails
Stonehouse Brewery

Purchased in Shrewsbury, coming in a 500ml brown bottle, BB 20/02/09, served cool in a straight imperial pint glass.

A: pours a deeply dark russet brown hue, good clarity, with little carbonation in action and a soapy head on the top.
S: dark fruits, grapes and chocolate+crystal malts dominate the aroma, backed by the secondary layer of roast tea leaves, dried leafy herbs, and a touch of sweet nuttiness. It smells like English Fuggles are used in the brew, but hugely compromised by the rich profile of fruity malts.
T: chocolatey+roasty malts and grapey&stone-fruitiness come on top of a layer of lightly spicy and earthy English hops plus walnut-flavoured toffee, laced by a faint hint of roasted malts in the aftertaste that provides some dry-ish bitter kickback and aroma; the finish is only moderately bitter as compared with other Premium Bitter, while being desirably, lingeringly fruity.
M&D: very mild on carbonation, which is not flat at all but not on top form, either. The cask version is certainly better and more complex by a good margin, but the bottle-conditioned version has kept some of the key flavours intact, which could've tasted better if served not so long after bottling, I presume.

The 4th and 5th bottles in my Shropshire Beer Reviewing Evening. Two 500ml brown (bottle conditioned) bottles, both best before Feb 2009, drank Jun 2008.

One poured into an 'Old Speckled Hen' vase type pint glass. It might have been too cold because it wasn't anywhere as good as the other beers i've had from this brewery. The second bottle (garage temp) was poured into a Hoegaarden Grand Cru stemmed tulip glass. A good red, teak wood colour, but no head at all on the cold beer, just a weak wisp of cloud sat in the middle of the top. The room (garage) temp beer held a small off-white head for a short amount of time.

The aroma was poor at first, but as the beers warmed they gave off esters of hops and barley malts. A trained nose may have picked up fruity smells, but I didn't.

Heavy and almost rich in mouthfeel, the warmer beer was more flavoursome and easier to drink. There was a hided depth to the beer, the warmer, the deeper it became. It is incredible how the same beer can be so different. I know they were the same brew batch, I picked them up from the brewery myself and was asked not to open the bottles for a couple of weeks because they were so young. I've waited 3 months, to be frankly almost disappointed.

This beer was going to be the crowning glory of my tasting evening. I opened two bottles because the first might have been too cold and to make sure I wasn't doing the brewery an injustice. Sadly it was an anti-climax, what a shame.

Only last Saturday I visited the brewery again (with CAMRA). It was a lovely day out and they treated us very well. The beers they put on were super, I bet this beer on cask is good too!