Brewery: Hop Back, Salisbury, Wiltshire, England

Brewery Description: “Terrific straw-coloured beer with a fresh, hoppy aroma and a well rounded, malty flavour with an intense bitterness which leads to an excellent long, dry finish. Winner of numerous, prestigious awards, most notably Best Strong Bitter at The Great British Beer Festival in 1992/93. Ingredients: Optic pale malt. East Kent Goldings and Challenger hops (The bottled version uses EKG only).”

Brew Style: English Bitter/Golden Ale, 5.0% ABV

Recommended Glassware: English pint, Shaker

The Ugly Truth: Two things about this beer. One, it was a good refreshing beer with a nice summer ale taste to it. Second, I don’t agree with about 90% of the commercial description for this beer. I agree with the fact that it was a terrific straw-coloured beer. I personally did not catch the hoppy aroma, but the beer did smell great. This is not an intensely bitter beer by any stretch of the imagination. It had some bitterness to it, but it was pretty mild in my opinion. I’m beginning to discover that the English definition of “bitter” is different than the rest of the world. Even with these facts, this was still a good beer. Nice smooth flavor with some good body to it, ending with a crisp and refreshing finish. I would definately drink it again, I just don’t think it lives up to what they say about it. It might be as they say that the bottled version only uses East Kent Golding hops that accounts for the difference, but I don’t think so.

Verdict: Hey Zues, I beat you can’t hit 6 out of 10 bottlecaps using one bolt, you freakin’ pansy!