噱頭多多的 Wychwood 酒廠這次讓哥布林(Goblin)與滿月也掛上關係了~~ 總之, 是一款不錯喝的Premium Bitter...

Wychwood Brewery, King Goblin, 6.6%abv. (Premium Bitter)

     Coming in a 500ml brown bottle, BB 31/01/2014, served cool in a straight imperial pint glass. Note: the beer label specifies the ingredients to include Crystal malts and Sovereign hops. Also, it explains this beer is “[o]nly ever brewed under a full lunar moon…” – why, playing with some mystical legends of Goblins or trying to apply the biodynamic concept of… beer-making??

3.5/5 Appearance: pours a deeply dark copper colour, coming with a light beige frothy head with decent retention and scattered carbonation mixed of tiny and huge bubbles.

3.5/5 Smell: overripe dark fruits, plum preserve, dried berry fruits, raisins, burned brown sugar (understated) and marzipan, while a swirl brings up a complex note of fruit esters, almond shaves, semi-stinky pale malts and refreshing hop resins. Very pleasant, robust aroma befitting a strong bitter.

3.5/5 Taste: the sour-sweet fruity foretaste is full of dark stone-fruits, fruit preserve, fruit cake and dark malts, underlined by a pleasant layer of sweetened tea-ish bitterness, then ensued closely by a semi-dryish palate rendered by the complex double fermentation system (from Brakspear) which I suspect is used in making this brew. At the sweet-sherry like dry-ish finish, more hop influence is revealed, where the resinous fruity and earthy aroma lingers with a vivid layer of hop bitterness of moderate strength, echoed by pleasant and restrained aftertaste of dried-grapy, light cocoa and juicy maltiness.

3.5/5 Mouthfeel & 4/5 Overall: the carbonation level is generally very decent, well complementing the rich body of malts and fruitiness but the palate is still semi-light; this full-bodied premium bitter or strong ale is richly-flavoured and decently dry-ish bitter in the finish, easily living up to the standards of Wychwood’s craftsmanship in general. Not bad, although I can’t see the imprint of a full moon in the beer nor can I feel the mysterious aura around this rather straight-forwardly delicious strong bitter~~

--Yau (tasted 09/03/13, notes transcribed 11/03/2013)