Hop Drop (Champion Ale)
Darwin Brewery Ltd.

Febr. 2005: Cask conditioned at the Lambton Worm (JDW), Sunderland. Golden colour, no head, little lacing. Moderate citrussy aroma. Light bodied. Pineapple and grapefruit in the flavour. Quite nice, but unfortunately a bit too sweet to be a definite favourite of mine.

500ml brown bottle, purchased at the Tesco supermarket. No freshness info. is printed on the bottle. Served cool in a straight imperial pint glass.

A: pours a clear, dark orangey golden hue; the beer head comes foamy and moderate, with pretty good retention due to firm support of the lively-fizzy body.
S: the citrus-fruity aroma expands lively starting from pouring--tangerine+grapefruit-flavoured fruit-gum/fruit-candyish note abounds upfront, mixed quite nicely with a toffee-ish creamy maltiness, a touch of fine white cane-sugar, and more tangerine-citrus aroma of hops in the background. Balanced aroma b/w sweet maltiness and fruity hops, though the latter falls a bit short overall.
T: the semi-sweet, malt-candyish pale-malty palate upfront gradually introduces a flowery fragrant flavour (a bit like First-Gold hops?) of hoppyness along with a nicely-tuned bubbly texture following closely. A chewy but fine-textured bready maltiness stays in the lingering aftertaste, along with more fruity hop-bitterness which is just enough to round off the malty overtone.
M&D: the mouthfeel is very lively for a British bottled beer, albeit a bit lighter-than-ideal bodied. The balanced flavour is the strongest point in this American Pale Ale style beer, although it does not contain the boldness and rich complexities of American hops and is rather delicate(or conservative) in terms of hop characters. Having said that, this is a reasonably hoppy, quaffable ale all the same.