Hardys & Hansons Olde Trip
Greene King / Morland Brewery

Fits the profile for what is badged as Royal Standard Best Bitter at the Royal Standard of England in Beaconsfield. Pours an almost-clear copper colour, with a soapy head that settles to a bubbly ring. Very malty, with caramel biscuit on the nose - more of the same on the tongue with a bitter hop note towards the end of the slightly watery mouthfeel.

 

Cask conditioned at The Barony Bar, Edinburgh. Amber to copper coloured beer, creamy head. Oaky / woody aroma, notes of farmhouse and cellar. The flavour is also woody and moderately malty, fairly dry. Dusty hops in the finish.

Cask. Medium amber with a thin head.
Malty aroma along with leafy hop.
Traditional English malt flavour. Some toffee, fruit and nut.
Soft cask conditioned feel.
Miles better than the bottled version but can't hold a candle to the original version by H+H I once drank.

Cask

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From cask dispense into an English half pint glass at the Rose and Olive Branch, Virginia Water, Jan '12

Pours a clear chestnut brown colour with a thin white head that soon vanished

Bready-malty caramel in the aroma, but quite a background smell on all counts, no one aroma dominates

Malt dominates the taste, slightly woody and nutty

Mouthfeel was below average, quite a thin beer, no real body

Overall a very average beer

I had it back in the 90's when brewed by H&H but was not a regular drinker so have no comparison memories

It was less GK'ified than I'd been expecting, having had a Bellhaven beer recently that smacked of GK!

If it's the only beer on tap or the others are from the GK family I might have it again!

Thought I had reviewed this in its bottled form some years ago: must have been mistaken or it got lost when the site was attacked that time!

Anyway this is a review of a cask pint drank in the back bar (RAF bar) of 'The Eagle' Cambridge.

Hand pulled into a UK pint sleeve: copper body, bright and clear with an off-white head of bubbles. The head hung around for a good while and left some heavy lacing as the beer sank down the glass.

The smell was a fine mix of citrusy hops and mild maltiness: nothing too strong but easily found non-the-less.

The taste more on the malt side than hoppy, lightly toasted malts in fact, with an undercurrent of hop bitterness towards the end.

This is an OK beer, Greene King produce some awful beers as well as some outstanding ones, this sits firmly in the middle!

This has a beautiful, big, foamy white head and lots of lace. It is dark, but see through. Reddish brown in color. There's a very nice malty scent mixed with grape. Scent/Look best parts of this brew.

This is essentially a soft tasting ale. It has a dry taste with a bit of a dark fruit aftertaste. It's also quite malty. There's a bit of a tart mouthfeel. It's smooth, definitely not heavy, but a bit dry.

I reviewed this beer last when it was brewed where it was supposed to be , by Hardy,s and Hanson's at their now defunct Kimberley Brewery. It was so good I just had to write a review for it and gave it pretty well a maximum score throughout.
http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/6576/12729/?ba=marquis

The present version from the Westgate Brewery (Greene King) is supposedly flavour matched. I would suggest that their taster doesn't give up his day job.It bears little relation to the original apart from perhaps the colour and the gravity.As all Greene King brews taste very similar to each other I suspect that they have been unwilling to change the yeast,and it's the yeast which gives so much of the beer's character.

It's a perfectly enjoyable and well brewed pint and pleasant enough to drink.But is it Olde Trip? I think not

Coming in a 500ml slim clear bottle, BB December 2009, served cool in a straight imperial pint glass. NOTE: This beer is still being brewed by the Greene King (GK) since Hardys&Hansons' brewery was closed following the earlier take-over. It's available in both cask-conditioned (at least permanently at "Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem" pub in Nottingham that gives this beer the name as such) and bottled (filtered&pasteurised) forms.

A: pours a bright copper hue with a copious amount of large bubbles at play but then softening slowly, topped with a thin, off-white fluffy head with o.k. retention.
S: as soon as the cap is opened, a strong note of skunk (! - from the clear bottling I'm sure) dominates the nose; as it retreats, the aroma shows bitter-sweet cold tea, mildly spicy note as of Styrian Goldings hops, random bits of caramelised fruits (apple-like), and lightly sour yeastiness that is typical of a GK ale. I remember the last time I tried the cask version last year at the "Ye Olde" pub, the aroma was already like this, only without the skunky bit.
T: quite effervescent at first but not unbearable; luckily, not much skunk here, only a spicy, earthy, tea-ish flavour develops with hints of boiled root-veggies and rather flat-bodied caramelised sugar. The aftertaste turns rather dry, due to a good level of hops in the brew, while in the end a faint sour edge of red prunes and faint jasmine blossoms manage to linger alongside the moderate bitterness.
M&D: despite the initial fizz attack, the palate does soften as the bubbles disappear, but the mouthfeel overall is thin-ish that is not helped by a medium-minus body. Overall, this bottled ale smells and tastes very much like a Greene King ale, as I never had the chance to taste it before H&H's demise. But compared with the cask version I had last year, the bottle version lacks the liveliness as much as softness on the mouthfeel, hence an average drinkability at best. Almost like the "Marmite phenomenon", GK is now the new subject that British ale drinkers either love ('Spoon goers) or hate (CAMRA hardliners), but the resentment is mainly due to what GK's done to numerous smaller breweries after preying on them. As to the beers, GK has maintained some level of consistency in the quality of its traditional line of ales, while other branded ales now produced by GK have unfortunately become more and more homogenous (the yeast-strain issue?) - a pity.