I save the best empties. Usually they are rare ones or just just the best tasting. I think I am saving this lovely design just for how it looks - the partridge in a pear tree, the slender tall pint bottle...or rather half litre.
The ales of Hook Norton rarely shows up in my area. One summer, almost five years ago now, the LCBO stocked Haymaker ale. I loved it. I think it loved me, too. I have great hopes for this Yuletide sibling. On the pour, I get fresh laundry, plum and HP sauce on the nose. It pours a bright deep chestnut under a pale mocha cream froth and foam. On the mouth there is dry chocolate and cocoa powder with date and dry fig. Grainy, too, like the crust of home made brown bread. Just shy of licorice. A lovely texture - both creamy and finely particled. Just a bit of twiggy hop leaving it a little dry but not anywhere near astringent. A solid but not overbearing 5.5% with, I would now guess, about 250-280 calories. Very high praise from the BAers.
Comments
Paul Garrard - February 27, 2009 6:34 PM
I love Hook Norton beers. The brewery is pretty neat as well. Haymaker is brilliant. Their beer are even better on cask, they don't come my way that often but are always good when they do.
Thad - March 1, 2009 3:57 PM
This is truly a wonderful beer ... it is one of my wife's favorites and one that she will bite a hand off to get!
If you get a chance to visit the brewery, it is a great place to visit ... a Victorian building, with all of the brewing still powered by a steam engine, and a couple of shire horses for local deliveries (which are also used at special events). Also, it is one of the few breweries that is not dry ... if you get lucky, when you visit, you can have a pint with the very people that brew the beer.
Andrew Blackman - March 4, 2009 8:24 PM
I used to live in Oxford and had plenty of Hook Norton. The Haymaker summer ale was fantastic. A lot of good memories of lazy summers drinking that stuff. Don't remember ever trying this one. Can really taste it from your description, though!