Looking forward to baron rating Beer Hawk's Champion Bottled Beers of Britain

The Great British Beer Festival was held back in August and online beer retailer Beer Hawk were one of the sponsors of the event.Apart from being there for the festival they also produced a 15-bottle finalists mixed case of the finalists of CAMRA's 2013 Champion Bottled Beer of Britain award.

They very kindly sent me a box to review, below are the contents (which arrived last week). All these beers are bottle conditioned as that is CAMRA's stipulation for bottled ales.

  • Beowulf Dragon Smoke - 5.3% stout
  • Conwy Clogwyn Gold - 4% light quaffable golden ale with plenty of hop aroma and a long bitter finish
  • Harveys Imperial Extra Double Stout - 9% Imperial Russian Stout
  • Hopshackle Restoration [baron rating 5/5] - 9.5% Belgian strong ale inspired beer which has been aged for 6 months before bottling
  • Marble Chocolate Marble [baron rating 4/5] - 5.5% beer which covers the middle ground between a stout and a porter. A smooth rich and full bodied beer, with a firm backbone of bitterness. Coffee and liquorice aromas are from the chocolate malt, a hint of sweetness and a long bitter finish
  • Marble Lagonda IPA [baron rating 5/5] - 5% clean, hoppy IPA, the beer delivers citrus, fruit and a long crisp finish owing to the use of 6 different hops
  • Neath Black - 5.5% superb dark malt flavour is balanced by a refreshing hop bitterness and an outragous amount of aroma hops
  • O'Hanlon's Port Stout - 4.8% Our prize-wining stout is blended with a softening measure of rich ruby Port
  • Old Bear Black Mari'a - 4.2% wholesome jet black stout, smooth on the palete, blended with two English hops, producing a strong roast malt flavour with a fruity finish
  • Spire Sgt. Pepper Stout - 5.5% Our nationally award-winning stout laced with ground black pepper
  • St Austell Proper Job [baron rating 5/5] - 5.5% Cornish IPA, a 'proper' IPA, strong golden ale that's powerfully hopped, bursting with citrus and grapefruit flavours
  • Stewart Embra - 5% classic amber beer packed full of flavour. Full in body with a fruit aroma balanced with a full, yet soft bitterness
  • Stewart St Giles -5% dark, malty & smooth. A robust, rich and well balanced beer full of body and flavour
  • Worthington White Shield [baron rating 4/5] -5.6% finest India Pale Ale for true IPA connoisseurs
  • Young's Special London Ale [baron rating 5/5] - 6.4% smooth, rich, malty ale with notes of candied fruit on the palate and a powerful spicy hop finish
Look out for 'baron ratings' of these beers soon, and a big thank you to Chris France (@TheBeerHawk) from Beer Hawk for sending these through to me!

Buy all these beers from Beer Hawk and get 10% off if you use my discount code "BARON" at checkout!

3 comments:

beersiveknown said...

Good way to track their customers that come via you! Some great beers in this selection, though seems to favour the darker ones. Still yet to try Harvey's imperial stout must get around to that one!

Baron Orm said...

Agreed, so pleased to see a couple of Marbles in there, excellent brewery. I've tried a couple of the weaker Harveys but not the impy stout, that's one of the ones I'm really looking forward to in this box.

beersiveknown said...

Still don't quite get why people rave about Sussex best, just not for me...its like orval in that I could take it or leave it. Their brown ale lewes castle is pretty special though.

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