Red Hill Imperial Stout

An imperial stout, pouring a carapace as solid and black as a roll of strategically placed gaffer tape.

So - that's one tick. There's a disappointing lack of head from this one though, only a slight patina of red mocha visible for a split second at the start. A little low for an Imperial at just 8.1%.

Initial thoughts on the aroma take me to the lands of the chocolate vanilla porter, but there's a bit of backing body there too. The problem with this body is it's lurking in the shadows holding a blunt rusty knife made of acetone and other stray tendrils. Hmm. Feeling a bit ill at ease now but all you can do is continue down that alley..

The flavour profile of this beer starts off quite nice, coffee notes evident up front, along with a muted parade of raisiny imperial notes. They too seem a little subdued in the context of that serial killer Acetone and his quiet but strangely insidious intimations of unripe fruit and off notes.

I think it's the hop profile in this beer that creates this odd edge rather than anything untoward in the beer's creation, but I couldn't help wishing they'd just left it alone and let the deeper choc / coffee notes do their job unharrassed. 4.0 3.0

Red Hill Diamond Jubilee British IPA

Another beer from history, this one attempting to commemorate 60 years of the Queen by recreating an old recipe for the original India Pale Ale.

As such it's going to be an English hop based product - which as we've seen can go one of two ways. In this case, it's a sloppy pour out of the bottle with a loose head that's gone within moments. Aroma is, well, British.. but not a great deal of character coming through even then. Pretty nondescript to be honest, a bit disappointing.

The palate brings bitterness above and beyond any real sense of 'hops', which I suppose makes sense if they're following the auld recipes. It does somewhat limit the flavour progression of the beer however with a pretty flat character throughout. Bit metallic, only one real punch of malty fruits about half way through the mouthful.

In short then an OK sort of a beer, but I'm unsure it commemorates anything more than misplaced nostalgia. Nice bottle though. 5.0

Red Hill Golden Ale

First swing at Red Hill, which is apparently allergic to photos.

Can't say I'm too great a fan of 'golden ale' usually anyway but this thing was a bit of a surprise in that it did more of a pilsner trick than anything else.

Aroma mostly of bittering hops, odd sort of flavour profile kind of like a kolsch, light malt finish. Not a lot to speak of in the way of flavour? And thus a short review, and a summary 3.0