Hopping Mad Brewery English Ale
Hopping Mad Brewery

The attractive cardboard packaging caught my eye whilst shopping for a six pack to enjoy during the Australia v Greece soccer game at the “G”.

Dark brown beer, firm off white head, medium level of carbonation - an attractive beer. There is aroma, but I am not sure it is hops I’m detecting! Homebrew would be a good description of the taste - no, my homebrew is much better than this. Has that tart sourness found in poorly made beer. Ends watery with faint hint of roasted malts. It’s going to take me a while to finish this six pack. The girlfriend’s summed it up nicely, “Oh yeah, something’s gone wrong here!”

Considering the other “ok” reviews, I am assuming I got a dodgy batch, might have to try this again some time in the future - once the painful memories of this experience fade. Very disappointing, but at least the Aussies won the soccer.

Extremely dark brown body with reddish hues exposed when held to light. Head is a light caramel colour, with loose bubbles that expand too quickly and remove any retention there may have been.

Sweet toasted malts on the nose, dark honeyed fruits and an unpleasant whack of Vegemite. Some medicinal chemical hints are detected when you take a reall deep breath. All in all, there's a lot to take in, but it's not all pleasant.

Starts quite watery, with a little sourness. As the flavour continues, there are resonances of toasted malt, charcoal and a mouth-drying character like unprocessed bran or crusty bread. I must stress these are only hints, though. Overall, the flavour is quite bland. Mouthfeel is unremarkable, almost like water.

Overall, this is not a particularly impressive beer. I expected better from my old home town =).

Drinkable, but utterly forgettable.

Note: On the bottle, this is simply called the HMB Ale.