Fullers India Pale Ale (Bottle/Keg)

Brewed by Fullers
Style: Premium Bitter/ESB
London, England

Bottle. Amber coloured with a thick white head. Hoppy aroma with some sweet malts and fruits. Not tremendously flavoursome; bit of a pasteurised taste, with some light hops, malts and honey. Not bad though. Medium bodied and quaffable.

Pours dark red orange very small offwhite head. Very sweet aroma of hops. taste very sweet of malts and full of hop flavor. Not the best bitter but good. The cask bitter is way better.

Poured from the bottle, amber with a think bubbly white head. A sweet hoppy aroma. Sugary malty flavour, a good hoppy bitterness all the way through. A good lingering malty finish.

Date on the bottle: 07/June/04. I don’t know if that’s June of 04 or June of 07. Poured beautiful clear, dark copper with thin, creamy pearl head. Smell is definite hops, with a little more of a winey intensity. Light sugary malts. Sticky in the glass, but a rather light, syrupy palate. I taste grains in foreground with, potent yet limited hops. A nice version of IPA, leaning more towards a specific flavour than overpowering hops.

Bottle 51F Pint Glass. Nice slightly fruity aromas, with medium malts. Light brown color very clear with a light head. Good hop characteristics nothing like an American version much more mild, a bit of a metallic sweetness if that is possible in the taste, Hops were pleasant but not overly dominate. A lighter palate than I expected but not bad at all, medium mouthfeel, not too much carbonation. A decent beer but not like American Hop monsters.

Bottle (Waitrose): Mild fruity aroma. Some darker malt notes in the flavour. Light copper in colour. Drinkable, but nothing special.

Bottle. A little boring. Some sappy hop characters and lightly sweet honeyed malt. Once again, the pasteurisation has killed this beer as the cask version was OK.

Bottled picked at Sainsbury’s in the Fullers brewers selection 4 pack along with Discovery, Chiswick, and Honeydew. This was the most impressive of this four pack and was the sole reason for buying all four as I could not recall ever having had this in a bottle. Poured amber with a large white head (probably as a result of my haphazard pouring as it soon dissappeared) Some citric and sweet smells maybe some malt also, a wonderful hoppiness in the mouth and good degree of bitterness, I agree with some of the others as bottled IPA goes this really is a very good example, pity that it’s rarely seen singley in bottles.