Shropshire Lad
Wood Brewery Ltd

Cask. Amber in colour. Quite a dense head.
Malty aroma. Caramel and hops.
Nutty flavour with a hint of toffee and banana. Mildly bitter.
Smooth and reasonably light.

Half pint at Wetherspoons in Helensburgh. A light bronze coloured beer with a slightly offwhite 'spoons style mottled head. I couldn't make out much of an aroma, maybe just a hint of chocolate. It has an excellent feel, smooth but not obnoxiously velvety. This is on the malty side for a bitter, fairly sweet with a creamy chocolate flavour backed by a pleasant bitterness which became more apparent the more I drank.

 

Bottled
Pours a dark chestnut beer with decent enough white head. Aroma of dark malts and caramel. Taste is malts, burnt caramel and some fruit cake. Decent

 

I poured this 500ml bottle into my favourite pint glass it pours a real burnt copper colour with a nice frothy three finger creamy head which leaves lots of lacing all down the sides of the glass,it smells quite fruity and some watery malt notes too,the mouthfeel is quite thin not much body to it at all it has some nice notes of maltish,caramel in the backgroud and has a little fruitiness to it aswell and finishes a little bitter but not nearly as bitter as i was expecting,pretty average and dont think ill go out of my way and spend my hard earned on it again.

Brown 500ml bottle, 5%, obtained from my local TESCO's, best before Dec 2007, consummed Feb 2007.

I had thought they only did this in a sedimented bottle form, but this beer was dead.

Poured into a straight sleeve pint glass, the off white foaming head soon turned into a wispy covering which did nothing to enhance its appearance. It was cloudy and moody looking, like bad washing up water that had been used a lot of times, the colour was a redish, dirty brown.

Incredible flowery aroma hits your nose, followed by a hoppy, barley, wheaty smell, a lot better smell than it looks its going to give off.

Bitter sweet taste, a true British bitter, the bottle said to lightly chill it before opening, don't understand why, this one was garage cooled and was fine apart from the appearance.

The bitter sweet flavours stay for a while in the mouth, hops coming through towards the end.

My eyes kept going back to the glass and they didn't like what they saw, if this had been poured into a stone stein, the scores would have been more even, but it did look rough, so 3 is my drinkability score.

I will try another and if it is clear, I'll do another review, to right the balance.

500 ml brown bottle, courtesy of Cardinal pub, Stavanger. ABV is 5.0%. Copper coloured, slightly hazy, moderate to low off-white head. Aroma of earth, honey and flowers. Flavour is rich and malty but not too sweet, some burnt caramel, balanced by decent hops, a distinct bitterness in the finish and aftertaste. Moderate carbonation. I like it!