Tasting Notes: Everards: Tiger

Everards: Tiger (England: Bitter: 4.5% ABV)

Visual: Bronzed brown with a bubbly off white head.

Nose: Malt and aniseed. Fudge. Raisin and cherry. Slight chocolate liqueur.

Body:  Reasonably hoppy bitterness is predominant but with a sour gooseberry tingle. In fact slight nettles tingle and taste.

Finish: Dry bitter and sour grapes. Slightly acrid. Greenery and flour.

Conclusion: A good bitter should refresh. Despite the seeming obviousness of the statement it is an oft missed element of the style, and the lack of it can lead to a quite boring beer.

This is a very tingly beer, yes I know that’s not the greatest description ever but it is true and catches the sensation well, it jitters upon your tongue. It’s a nettle affair mixed with a bit of sourness that matches the respectable bitterness making it tingling and the all important element, refreshing.

Flavour wise it doesn’t really play a massive range. It seems whatever hops they used they aimed more for the bitterness than for the more flavoursome or aromatic hops that some beers use.  This means it has a straight forward clinging hop taste.

Still it doesn’t skip on the elements that make the base of the beer. A simple workhorse of a beer, one you could imagine being welcome after a hard days work. Not shiny, but it does the job.

Background: One of the 500 beers from Michael Jackson’s “Great Beer Guide” and bought for that reason.  Having odd trouble trying to find a decent replacement pint glass after I shattered my last one so still using half pints for these sorts of tastings.  Battery went on the main camera so apologies for the low quality photo. Drunk during a night chat with friends.