Cotleigh Barn Owl

Aroma: 2 | Appearance: 2 | Mouthfeel: 2 | Flavor: 2 | Overall: 2

Opens and pours as lifeless as a dirty old rag. This sour drink is flatter than a 10 year old. It is just water with a little beer poured in. Tastes like garbage disposal effluent. Drain pour. Please do yourself a favor and skip this crap! UPDATE! This beer gave me DIARRHEA!

Aroma: 7 | Appearance: 7 | Mouthfeel: 6 | Flavor: 7 | Overall: 7

It pours a dark amber with a thin light-tan head and some lacing. An aroma of caramel malts, hops, citrus, bitterness, plum, and mild spiciness. The mouthfeel is smooth and fairly rich. Flavors of caramel malts, hops, citrus, apples, bitterness, plum, and spices. Very good!

Aroma: 4 | Appearance: 7 | Mouthfeel: 4 | Flavor: 7 | Overall: 6

A muddy reddish brown colored beer with a paltry soapy textured white head rising oh so briefly above. Settles fairly quickly with a barely discernable soapy ringlet left. Breadiness and fruit on the nose. That same sweet bread and sour fruit are mixed with a grassiness on the tongue. A little flat, but overall it hit the flavorful need.

Aroma: 9 | Appearance: 8 | Mouthfeel: 8 | Flavor: 8 | Overall: 8

500 ml brown bottle, courtesy of Cardinal pub, Stavanger. ABV is 4.5%. Copper coloured, large and lingering creamy light tan head, leaves a nice lacing. Very nice aroma of toast, roasted malts, burnt caramel, orange marmalade and aromatic hops. Powerful flavour of roasted malts, burnt toast, caramel, brown bread and nuts. A distinct hoppy and roasty bitterness in the finish and aftertaste. Not a beer of the "easy drinking" kind, but has definitely character. I might have liked a tad more sweetness to balance the bitterness, but this is still an excellent beer. As the beer warms up, the malts come even more in front, and the bitterness is somewhat less dominant.

Aroma: 8 | Appearance: 5 | Mouthfeel: 6 | Flavor: 6 | Overall: 6

Clear amber. Grainy and a bit soapy aroma of nuts and toffee. Toffee and nuts in the flavour as well, notes of soap and grass. Grassy finish, hints of white chocolate. Decent pint.

Aroma: 8 | Appearance: 8 | Mouthfeel: 9 | Flavor: 6 | Overall: 8

Sampled cask-conditioned @ The Globe Inn, Lostwithiel, Cornwall.

A slightly heavier Devonish vice Cornish bitter, but still pretty tasty overall. Worn-copperish in appearence -- looks like a well-worn 2 Pence piece, perhaps?

Rather muted in the aroma -- seemed to take the classic "English Reserve" stigma a little too far, IMO. No off notes, and yeah, some basic elements in the nose when you go out of your way to seek them out, but really now.... My idea of a fine Bitter doesn't feel the need to cloak any of it's strong points.

At least the flavor profile tends to compensate a bit. More malty (and less bitter) than it's Cornish cousins due West, but still a reasonably satisfying drop of beer.

Tended to improve with time, since I thought both the mouthfeel and the overall drinkability to still be in the "B+/A-" range by the end of the glass.

Something I wouldn't mind revisting, if for no other reason than to make sure that I've given this beer a fair shake. But until then, I can still give this one a thumb's up....
//TB

Aroma: 7 | Appearance: 7 | Mouthfeel: 7 | Flavor: 7 | Overall: 7

On draught. Dark brown beer with thinish beige head. Slight hop aroma, malty, caramel flavour. Smooth with a dry finish. Goes down well.