Jennings: Cocker Hoop (England: Bitter: 4.2% ABV)
Visual: Hazy yellow to lemon rind. A good sized slightly banoffee tinged head that leaves small clumps round the glass. A small amount of carbonation mid body.
Nose: Slight lemon curd. Vanilla cream. Wet slivers of bark. Touch of nettles. Tangerine and passion fruit.
Body: Sherbety. Lemon. In fact lemon sherbets. Mandarin oranges. Light bitterness behind and moderate earthy hops.
Finish: Good bitterness and creamy hops. Mandarin oranges again. Turmeric and hops. Slightly prickly in its bitterness. Slight custard cream biscuits.
Conclusion: There are flavours you often only get as subtle side notes in beers. They are presumably used so as to use them full force in a beer would be considered very hard, or possibly off-putting.
Thus finding a full force and pure flavour of mandarin oranges in the midst of this beer was a fricking shock.
Thus (for a second Thus) I am happily enjoying this. Technically an ok beer with a bitter kick, but with that mandarin laced straight throughout in pure form it cannot help but bring a smile to my face.
This is the difficult part where I have to try and think of how other people will receive the beer as opposed to just my quite random enjoyment of it. Well I think others will enjoy it. Its solid made, a golden hued bitter with a nice quirk to make it stand out. You may not make that weird squee of “Its Mandarin fucking orange” like me. Most likely because you are not mental and odd. You probably will enjoy it though.
So to try and be vaguely objective in the subjective beer world, well its flavoursome, if not a huge range, a solid kick if not excessive or outstanding. It’s definitely above average and fun.
Now to sod objectivity. It’s a massive mandarin orange bitter. Try it, try it!
Background: One of Michael Jackson’s 500 recommended beers and picked up for that reason. Drunk with friends so had a few second opinions.
