*Karen’s mum got me 6 bottles of beer for Christmas. I have now reviewed them all. It occurs to me in retrospect that I seem to have drunk them in nearly perfect ascending order of strength.*
**Beer:** Centurion’s Ghost Ale
**Brewery:** York Brewery
**Strength:** 5.4%
Very dark. Very, very dark. Dark as the night. A bit roasty, a bit sweet. Very enjoyable to drink, but not quite special enough to earn it the coveted top rating.
Centurion’s Ghost Ale gets: 
*Karen’s mum got me 6 bottles of beer for Christmas. I’m going to review them all. If I remember.*
**Beer:** Rocket
**Brewery:** Wylam
**Strength:** 5%
Rejoice! It’s not unlike the Pickled Partridge, but without the unpleasant aftertaste. Really went down easy, especially for such a (relatively) strong bitter. A fantabulously delishious one.
Rocket gets: 
*Karen’s mum got me 6 bottles of beer for Christmas. I’m going to review them all. If I remember.*
**Beer:** Pickled Partridge
**Brewery:** Badger (Hall and Woodhouse)
**Strength:** 4.5%
As the first drops of this hit my tongue, it showed great malty promise. But sadly it was plagued with a very strong aftertaste which I found quite unpleasant. I’d describe this aftertaste as fizzy and acidic.
Further research (reading the label on the bottle and the website blurb) suggests that this beer is intended as an accompaniment to strong cheese or Christmas Pudding. So basically, the reason why I didn’t enjoy it is that I’m drinking it wrong. I’m not convinced.
Pickled Partridge gets: 
*Karen’s mum got me 6 bottles of beer for Christmas. I’m going to review them all. If I remember.*
**Beer:** Farmers Harvest
**Brewery:** Purity
**Strength:** 4.8%
Not a bad drink, not bad at all. A fairly dark ale, and very malty, if you like that sort of thing. The end of the glass came too soon – I felt that if I had another bottle, I’d be able to review it with a bit more certainty. Flavour-wise, I felt that it wasn’t entirely my cup of tea, but the most important thing about this beer is the ideology.
Farmers Harvest gets:
*Karen’s mum got me 6 bottles of beer for Christmas. I’m going to review them all. If I remember.*
Now that my sense of smell has returned, I am going to resume this little project. I had a bottle of Black Sheep last week but realised halfway through my first mouthful that I couldn’t taste it, so I’ve bought another.
**Beer:** Black Sheep
**Brewery:** Black Sheep
**Strength:** 4.4%
Ah, this takes me back. I remember when I first discovered Black Sheep, when I was at University. My flatmate Matt and I consumed gallons of this stuff. In fact, it’s probably safe to say that this is what got me into real ale, my previous preference of beer generally being “Creamflow” type bollocks. Black Sheep made me realise how misguided I was.
It’s a very drinkable ale – fruity, but not too fruity; flavoursome, but not pungent – and just all-round solid, dependable stuff. For me, the label has always stood out on the shelf and filled me with good memories. It does not taste like sheep.
Black Sheep gets:
*Karen’s mum got me 6 bottles of beer for Christmas. I’m going to review them all. If I remember.*
**Beer:** Golden Pippin
**Brewery:** Copper Dragon
**Strength:** 4.2%
This is one of those beers that tastes like the bastard offspring of ale and lager. Under the right circumstances these are fantastic, however it’s not 30°C outside right now (it’s more like 30°F) so, to adopt a phrase, it is out of its element.
Still, it’s better than lager ((I think that my attitude towards lager probably deserves a whole post to itself. If you want to engage me in a pitched battle of beer vs lager, then please open fire in the comments)), and it’s better than anything that describes itself as “Extra Smooth” or “Creamflow”.
And so, to the rating. I’m going to keep this simple – 0 means I didn’t enjoy drinking it, 1 means that I enjoyed drinking it, and 2 means that it was something quite special.
Golden Pippin gets: (surprise surprise).