T'Owd Tup
Dent Brewery

Pours ruby black with puffy cream head that fades fairly fast. Nose of roast and sweet coffee. Oily bark and earth malts, metallic tang in the middle, birch and leaf at the end. Something faintly unpleasant in there - meat? Bovril? Finishes dry, no hint of the ABV.

Not much too it, thinness makes it drink fast but with high ABV - all those together makes a hazardous beer.

500ml bottle bought from The Vineyard, Belfast... Champion winter beer of 1999 apparently...

Poured a deep dark mahogany brown colour. Mocha head poured tight, thick and foamy then faded quickly to light covering with thicker edging... no lacing at all...

Aroma - Dried spicy fruits (raisins and prunes) mixed with lightly toasted chocolate malts, quite a lot of earthy / farmyard notes, leathery, some treacle, nutmeg and peppery spiciness, cut grass, roasted nutty sweetness, some burnt / charred caramel notes, woody, soy sauce traces...

Taste - Slightly washed out dark fruits (prunes, blackcurrents, dates), (milk) chocolate maltiness, stewed veg notes, toasted bread (malt loaf), some brown sugar sweetness, definite sour traces, salty notes, milky vanilla, some grassy hops...

M&D - Quite smooth as there is very light carbonation... medium bodied... fairly drinkable although at 6% maybe a little too strong to be sessionable...

Overall - A pretty bog standard stout with a few off flavours and aromas... worth a try once maybe.. not quite sure how this has won any awards

This bottle was given to me by a work colleague, thanks Ian.

Poured into a Hannen Alt glass three times, it was a deep ruby red colour with a fast fading brown head.

The aroma was all about farmyards, farmyards where sheep have just moved through and left a few piles of droppings behind them. Some would call it a healthy country smell others would not be so kind.

The bottle says 'May contain gluten', well does it or doesn't it? I didn't find anything to like about the taste. There were some burnt malts, maybe some burnt caramel but mostly a peat come earthy smack to it which I just couldn't take too.

The 6% wasn't really evident to me, but the flavours I mentioned above did linger, so the mouthfeel was OK even if i didn't enjoy it.

Big disappointment and letdown, this was not what I expected at all. Winter beer of Britain 1999 'My Arse'.

500 ml bottle, bought in Scarborough. Dent t’Owd Tup was voted Champion Winter Beer of Britain in 1999, a fact that is still proudly displayed on the label. Black colour, reddish brown in the highlights. Decent creamy tan head, does not last forever. Moderate but very nice roasty aroma, notes of coffee, hints of chocolate, leather and plums. Concerning the flavour, for once I find it appropriate to quote the commercial description / tasting notes: "The dominant roast character is balanced by a warming sweetness and a raisiny, fruit-cake taste which lingers on into the long aftertaste, making this a very satisfying drink." Pretty much spot on, if you ask me. A combination of maltiness and fruitiness carries the beer through, and Northdown hops are used for both aroma and flavour. Good stuff!

This "Old Ram" (translated from the name "T'Owd Tup", in Yorkshire dialect) was voted as "Champion Winter Beer of Britain 1999", according to the front of the beer label. This is some beer I've been wanting to try for a long time, but always failed to get it. So it came as a pleasant surprise when I saw it on the shelves at Nelson Wines in South Winbledon last weekend. Yet, as with many other beers in that shop, this one has long past its BB date...(02/2006), so I guess it's better to consume it now without further ado. 500ml brown bottle presentation, filtered. Served cool in a jug.

A: nearly black, with mahogany glows against light; the tan-hued beer head comes creamy and frothy, settling down very slowly...
S: full of chewy, big and raw aroma of black malts, calcium pills, very dark chocolates with a touch of vanilla, a semi-sweet hint of treacles and black sugar. Fruitiness is subdued, as is the roast-edge which is common to this style. Overall a bit too malty, but I suspect it's made to be a sweet stout?
T: silky-smooth textured, treacle-ish and roast-nutty flavour of dark malts caresses the tongue, as creamy as chocolate-milk; at the back a rainsiny flavour and slightly sour edge of black plums as well as very dark chocolates gradually builds up, while a suggestion of char/roasted edge of roasted barleys creeps down the palate and leaves an aromatic bitter-sweet aftertaste like cocoa+charred walnuts... a restrained dryish and hoppy mouthfeel takes over in the long end.
M&D: the overall flavour profile is not too complex, although one could say that it's still made with a certain "gravity", i.e. smooth yet rich dark maltiness. Full-bodied, silky smooth on the mouthfeel, while the warming alc. for a 6.0%abv. beer blends in the flavour just seamlessly, hence full score for mouthfeel. A very good sweet stout to quaff, although it certainly requires more complexity and depth to live up to its title as a Champion beer. Really looking forward to trying this beer on draught.

This beer has won awards as a champion winter beer. I confess I can't see why. The label says it's a "ruby red stout". Some folks must like it, but it's just not for me.

This beer tastes so malty, the only thing it reminds me of is home brew beer kits and that non-alcoholic malt beer (i.e. concentrated malt extract).

Seriously, I couldn't finish this pint.