HOBGOBLIN by Wychwood Brewery
Dark English Ale
Well looking at the Brew Cellar, I think I saw this one in there. I need to get me one of those. Well this dark ale has a nice roasted malt flavor with an almost fruity aroma dare I say. Call me crazy but I tasted bananas and plums. Go figure. I peered into the dark red tinted glass as I sipped and must admit that there wasn’t a whole lot of complexity past the roasty flavor. I think I struggled with the fruity aroma. It did detect a smooth metallic banana flavor that must have been from the brewing process. I’m going to look that one up to see if there has ever been a connoisseur of fine ales using banana as a descriptive. Not that I would consider myself a connoisseur just yet. More like a participant in the experience. Carbonation was light and all in all a good pour. I will be curious to hear the experts opinion as he starts to explore the cavernous cellar of his. Until next time…
Drank this for the first time last night. I got to admit I’m a sucker for a beer with a cool name. I think that is why I bought it originally, I liked the name Hobgoblin.
After I poured this beer it had a really beautiful dark red color. Not much in the way of aroma, mostly malty/bready. After reading the above post, i was really looking forward to experiencing this brew, bananna – had to taste for myself 🙂 . Unfortunately, I was not overly impressed by this beer, with a cool name you really need to impress with the product. The beer had sweet initial taste of toffee and banana bread and finished with a fairly bitter aftertaste. The neck of the bottle said a good balance of chocolate toffee malt flavor with mild bitterness. I couldn’t taste any chocolate notes and for the style of beer it was a bit more then mildly bitter.
Tasting method: Mug poured from pint bottle
Score: 8.3