Head Cracker
Woodforde's Norfolk Ales

 

Bottle-conditioned; pour with care if that matters to you. It isn't stated on the labelling.
L- Dark amber, very slight haze, pours with 3mm fine white head [which holds very well!]
S- I've a touch of congestion but just get some toast + grains from this.
T- Wooh, crystallized fruits, ABV% zing, quite meaty/rich.
F- Rich, heading over nearing the border of rich/sweet. Perhaps more likely to work in winter vs summer where the richness risks taking on a rather OTT/artificial aspect - in that it is only 7.0%, yet is pushing the limits of rich/sweet for me.
O- The above sums it up. I have no prom with the ABV%, but I don't favour the overt sweet richness. Put another way, I don't get this from similar/higher ABV Dubbels, the issue here is a sugar/sweetness thing.
500ml bottle. BB: June 2020. Bought from BeersOfEurope.

500ml bottle from Beers of Europe:<br>
This was a beer that I feared was no longer brewed given the length of time since someone reviewed it one here but luckily it is still made & I managed to find a bottle online through Beers of Europe's UK based website. The beer was an easy on to drink and the 7% abv. provided a nice warming, slightly boozy feel to proceedings but this was balanced out well by the citrus flavours and sweetness, not to mention the caramel malts. A very nice beer and one well worth picking up if you're lucky enough to stumble across it.

A - Pours a hazy orange with a thin head that falls immediately to a light ring. A few floaties are suspended in the liquid and don't move. Almost no carbonation.

S - Plum, cherry, some citrus. Fairly light aroma and not particularly interesting.

T - Initial sour plum flavour sweetens in the middle. At this point toffee and cherry come through with some peppery alcohol spice appearing towards the end. These flavours linger into the aftertaste

M - Medium to full body, with soft carbonation.

D - Hugely drinkable. Found the smell to be muted, but otherwise a fine effort.

Got this bottle from Real Ale beershop in Richmond. The BB date is Oct. 05.

A: slightly hazy, light amber hue with orangey hint; the beer head is tight and frothy, slowly reducing to a 1cm-thick sheet of foam supported by a constant and gentle fizzy body. Beautiful.
S: incredibly delicious, perfumy malty (pale malts) aroma mixed with an underlying orangey-citrusy and faintly pineapple fruity note; the fruitiness is accompanied by an intense flowery scent with rawness of pollens like sniffed straight from the blossom (though I can't identify which flower it is), bringing out a soft texture to balance the juicy maltiness upfront. At the back a tinge of nuttiness, slightly oily hoppyness and diacetyl-note is observeable too. Overall quite softly aromatic and extremely pleasant.
T: a smooth flow of lightly sweet pale-malts with rather astringent and sour citrusy taste arrives at the palate; gradually the sourness softens while the palate turns (mildly) oily-hoppy, but somehow causes an intriguingly stimulating feel like slightly bitter citrusy zest in the mid-palate. The hoppyness stays down the tongue rather well, and leading to an intensifying floral bitterness towards the finish.
M: quite refreshing mouthfeel throughout, while the moderate hoppyness and a slightly spicy touch behind the bitterness really keeps the plot up and going.
D: overall a full-ish-flavoured pale ale with a medium body and good balance; not as alcoholic-rich as its 7.0%abv. might suggest, hence an understated strong beer really easy to drink. Could only imagine how much better it could be on cask... Recommended.

Juicy, syruppy orange citrus flavours, some rich sweet malts aswell, too sticky, with some OK hops tang at the end, bitter-ish finish. Nicely made stuff, but too sweet and sticky for me, but not bad. My skull remained un-cracked... (Cask- KentBF03')