Skinners Keel Over

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

Pours out in a pale amber colour with a small white foam. Grains, resin, nuts and milky chocolate in the subtle aroma. Mild flavour of milky chocolate, almonds, ryebread, raisins and hay. Light-bodied. Nutty and slightly resiny finish with notes of fudge and hay.

Aroma: 8 | Appearance: 6 | Mouthfeel: 6 | Flavor: 7 | Overall: 6

500 ml brown bottle, courtesy of Cardinal pub, Stavanger. ABV is 4.2%. Some of the profits of the sale of this beer benefits the National Maritime Museum Cornwall. Clear deep golden to amber colour, big white head. Very moderate aroma, stale water and dusty attic, a hint of honey and caramel comes through as the beer warms up. Flavour is moderately hoppy, hints of toffee and biscuits, fairly dry, some fruit in the finish. Nothing offensive in the flavour, this is an easy drinking session bitter, but definitely not a beer that stands out from the crowd. Unremarkable and relatively short aftertaste.

Aroma: 8 | Appearance: 9 | Mouthfeel: 9 | Flavor: 9 | Overall: 10

Sampled cask-conditioned at The Towan Blystra, Newquay, Cornwall.

To me, it seems all rather redundant for small breweries like Skinner's to have so many different beers, and yet they're all in the 4.0-4.5%ABV range. Is the English Bitter style really robust enough to support enough of a variance to have so many beers under one brewery's banner?

In this case, I would say yes. Clasified as Skinner's "mid-stength bitter", this does indeed fall right about in the middle of their extansive line of cask conditioned beers. And while one might think that this might fall into the "neither here nor there" category (i.e. not "light and easy drinking" nor "bigger and bolder"), I think this particular beer works quite well all-told.

I hate to quote directly from a brewery's website, but I think in this one case, it fits to a tee. "Beautifully balanced", indeed. Quite easy on the palate, but with enough going on to make sure that you sit up and take notice before the beer is gone from your Imperial Pint glass!

Like many other Cornish Real Ales, this features the now-rather-familar combo of Challenger or Northdown and Goldings -- with perhaps mixed up a little with some Styrian Goldings or Fuggles in the mix. We're only talking about perhaps 30 IBUs, so let's not over-think the hop-bill, eh?

No, like so many other well-made cask-conditioned beers, this beer's true strength lies in the carefully crafted and aligned malt bill, to give this beer much more interest and depth than one would normally think possible from a mere 4.2%ABV beer. Call it trickery if you must, as long as the end result is as balanced and as tasty as this...!

One of the rarer cask-conditioned beers in Central Cornwall -- and also one of my favorites. A winner in all aspects, IMHO....
//TB