Black Sheep Ale / Special Ale (Cask)

Golden with a small white head. Malty aroma with diacetyl. Sweetish thin malty flavour.

Guest at the Friendship, Fallowfield. Dark amber colour, white head. Bog-standard English bitter aroma with a slightly sour aroma. Dull flavour with the sourness intensified. The further down the glass you go the more your senses are dulled to the sourness. Not a pleasant experience and I thought I’d learned my lesson with their cask stuff. Very ordinary.

Cask@The Cambridge. Golden amber colour, small off-white head. Aroma is toffeeish, a bit caramelly as well as wooden and bready. Flavour is caramel malts, some diacetyl and mild notes of wood.

Cask, the Grand Sheffield. Golden color. Malty biscuity butterscotch aroma, slightly salty. Malty biscuity buttery flavor with butterscotch. An earthy bitterness, lingering on in the aftertaste. Tasty, but not a prize winner.

Cask conditioned - handpump - Lamplighter Northampton A dark copper coloured beer with a thin whitish bubbly head. The aroma and taste are reminiscent of a decent English best bitter with some berry notes amongst the predominantly malt character. I’m not normally a fan of Black Sheep but this was good.

Over marketted. The Black Sheep brewery promotes itself as something special and unique, so how come they manage a beer as ordinary as this? Nothing wrong with it per se, but whenever I’m in a pub where it is on display with other choices, I can’t recall the last time I went for Black Sheep.

cask @ The Old Bakery, Kenilworth. Dark gold in colour with aromas of hay, green apple, and a bit of spice. Flavors are of mild grassy hops upfront before a flourish of dry bready British pale malts. Light bodied, mild bitterness, and a reasonably effective thirst quencher. Average.

1/2 pint at The Wharf in Aalborg, Denmark. Amber/copper color, medium off-white head. Sweet, floral, bitter. OK+