On Wednesday we decided it would be a good time to have a first try of Axe Edge – our strong dark old ale inspired by Marston's Owd Rodger.
As luck would have it our friend Andy (another beer maker, but not Cheshire Peaks Andy) had had a similar idea – and he turned up with a bottle of Owd Rodger so we could do a side by side tasting.
If you really want to make your side by side tasting as fair as possible, you pour three beers: two of one beer and a third of the other beer. Then your tasters sample the beers blind and see if they can pick out which beer is different. If they can’t then you can safely say that the beer is “cloned”.
However, we weren’t really after attempting to clone Owd Rodger; Axe Edge is merely inspired by the classic Marston’s brew. And anyway, we decided to sample Axe Edge hand-pulled from the cask (although we had also bottled some), so comparing cask Axe Edge to bottled Owd Rodger was never going to be very fair.
So, enough wiffling, what were they like?
Colour: Both deep dark brown, but Axe Edge was noticeably darker.
Head: Rather unfair comparison: Axe Edge had a rich, thick, cream coloured head which lasted for ages. The Owd Rodger, being bottled, had very little head.
Aroma: Surprisingly similar – both sweet and malty, but the Axe Edge had a more intense aroma.
Flavour: Again surprisingly similar. Sweet, rich, malty, chocolaty and alcoholic. Frankly, both delicious!
Bitterness: Owd Rodger was more bitter. We agreed that on this one Owd Rodger probably had it right. Next time we make Axe Edge we will increase the bitterness by 10 IBU (International Bitterness Units – probably need to explain that one in another post!)
No comments:
Post a Comment