Quartz Cracker

Not bottle conditioned

Quartz Cracker [baron rating 3/5] - 5% dark ruby ale,earthy molasses choc smell,currants cola taste,molasses slight astringent bitter finish Baron Orm

Thank you to @bob_beer from Best of British Beer for sending this through for a 'baron rating'!

Buy Quartz ales from Best Of British Beer

Looking forward to baron rating Best of British Beer's Christmas ales

Christmas comes round far too quickly doesn't it?

It feels like only yesterday that we were baron rating some Christmas ales sent from Best of British Beer, well here are this year's contenders:

• Backyard Bad Santa - 6.8%, dark & strong. Full of sweet malt character, toffee & liquorice. Chased along by a big hitting bitterness with blackberry,citrus & aniseed. The sort of beer to poke you in the eye and pinch your Christmas presents!
• Cheddar Festive Totty - 4.7% bottle conditioned porter with ruby port. Festive Totty is our award-winning Totty Pot porter enriched with ruby port to give a smoother, sweeter taste with hints of chocolate and fruit
• George Wright Reindeer's Revenge - 5.1% premium ale brewed using only the Citra hop, giving this ale a citrus character along side a tropical hint of mango. This beer boasts exciting aromas and flavours (sounds interesting but the label is awful)

• Monty's Ding Dong - 4.4% Christmas special. A Champagne style real ale which is light, crisp & refreshing with a dry finish (we reviewed this last year but the bottle conditioning was completely wrong)
• Quartz Cracker - 5% *no description on the bottle whatsoever*
• York Stocking Filler [baron rating 4/5] - 4.8% dark, rich full bodied ale,having a distinctive finish of roast malt and chocolate. The addition of seasonal spices helps to add a hint of spice on the palete giving us a robust and satisfying beer (this is a good beer but the label should be banned!)

Look out for 'baron ratings' for these Best of British Beer beers soon, and a big thank you to @bob_beer for sending them through to me!

Buy these ales from Best of British Beer

Reviews of the remaining 6 ales of myBrewerytap's 52 Week Beer Club (December pack)

As you may already know,  Chris Routledge & I joined myBrewerytap's 52 Week Beer Club in December last year and received our first quarter's ales a week before Christmas.  We decided to split the tasting of the 13 bottled ales into two sessions, the first of which was at the beginning of January.  On Wednesday last week we decided to try the remaining six bottles.

Here are links to the six ales that we've 'baron rated':

• Best Mates Midsummer Madness [baron rating 1/5 ♫]

• Bitter End Lakeland Golden [baron rating 3/5 ♫]

• Penlon Cardi Bay [baron rating 2/5 ♫]

• Quartz Blonde [baron rating 4/5 ♫]

• Sadler's Thin Ice [baron rating 3/5 ♫]

• Stroud Budding [baron rating 5/5 ♫]

The Stroud Budding was by far the best ale of the night, really nicely balanced, a truly lovely beer. The Best Mates Midsummer Madness was the worst but after hearing another beer blogger's comments on his bottle from the club we feel that the bottle was probably off and not necessarily a fair representation of Best Mates ale.

We recorded some short (1-2 mins) MP3 audio reviews of us discussing the beer a little more than the 140 twitter-friendly limit allows, click each beer review link to find the audio player. 

myBreweryTap's 52 week beer club is well worth the money, at around £1.50 per bottle it's a great way to get to try loads of different ales from small and hard to get breweries - click here to join the club

Quartz Blonde

Quartz Blonde [baron rating 4/5] - this 3.8% golden ale has a gentle pale malt aroma,light crisp orchard fruit taste & slight caramel finish

Listen to what Chris and the Baron have to say about it.

Part of the superb '52 week beer club' by myBrewerytap
join it now and make sure you say "the baron made me do it"!

Buy Quartz ales here