McEwans Champion

Brewed by John Smiths (S&N, Heineken)
Style: Scotch Ale
Tadcaster, England

Bottle Sainsburys. Ruby beer with dark choc malts and dark fruit. Dark syrup and molasses/treacle/sweetness throughout especially on palate with some hop on the end. Bit sickly for me.2.9/5.0 Re-rate. Hot alcohol and malt aroma. Malt has a bit of coffee, malt loaf. Fairly simple, very malty beer, that has good smoothness and some spicy dryness too. Some more coffee and raisin in mouth. I rather like the dry malt, raisin, hop finish.

500ml bottle from Tesco. BBE 31 January 2005 but none the worse for being past that. First off, I wouldn’t call this a barley wine. Deep ruby red colour with a big fluffy beige head. Woody, vinous aroma, with a dried fruit thing going on too. On the palate there’s prunes, treacle, licorice and dark malt. Lots of malt in fact. Underpinning those highlights there’s a restrained bitterness and a lingering sweetness that reminds me of an Amarone in some ways. But the sweetness is quite insistent and gets a bit much after a while. Fairly thick, sumptuous mouthfeel. Overall, quite well done but the vinous elements of the aroma don’t carry through strongly enough to counterbalance the sweetness. This stops it from scoring higher in my book.

eh i cant think what to say about this fellow, however the alcohol is too obvious and its not very easy to drink, complex though.

Barley wine? Oookayyy, whatever. Tastes like a scotch ale to me. Pasteurised, artificially carbonated and filtered bottle from Tesco, Fort William. Dark brown/ruby. Dissipating head. Aroma of malt, butter, fruit. Sweetish malty flavour, firmish body, alcohol not over-evident. The McEwans scotch’s just don’t have that smokey/peaty thing going on that can make these beers complex and delicious, just a strong malty sweet vibe.

[bottle from tesco] Pours a dark brown/red colour, with a medium sized frothy head with big ugly bubbles. Has aromas of fruits: plum, raisin with an underlying nuttyness. decent body, fairly long finish. easy drinking.

In the bottle (not bottle conditioned), from Tesco in Hunstanton, Norfolk. I 1st had this maybe 8 yeard back when it won the 1st Tecso Bottle beer challange & was simply called McEwans No 1. I liked it then & I like it now. Dark brown colour. Very full, rich & fruity. Drinkable despite the 7.3% strength

Stunning dark colour with a long lasting off-white head, but looks aren’t everything! Surprisingly light on the nose, malty & fruity, quite complex. Very smooth with a big full bodied palate, quite noticably sweet, but it’s a satisfying malty sweetness. Finish is remarkable, long and lingering. Rather liked this, cant say I particularly like other Mcewans ales in bottles, so this was a pleasant surprise.

From a bottle.Brown and blood in colour,small head.Thick fruit and malty flavours,hard to finish.