So, the St. botolphs town finally arrived in Maine. I picked up three bottles of it. If you want you can drink what you got for me or we can still try to meet up if you had your heart set on some Maine Beer Co stuff. I am on vacation next week and am contemplating a trip down to Chelmsford to visit the grandparents so I can keep you posted with a private message.
My "clone" is a little over three weeks in the bottle. I am giving it a bit more time to mature to do a side by side but I can tell it's gonna be a lot different. My new tasting notes for the real thing...
Aroma: Rich Caramel and coffee, sweet alchohol. Dried fruit leather. Nutty. Low hop aroma.
Taste: Earthy Hops, Caramel and Molasses, coffee. Stone Fruit esters. A noticable bitterness and alcohol in the end.
M: Silky smooth, Medium body, Low carbonation. Medium finish.
I've tried one of mine after 3 days in the fridge, I'll do notes on mine as well as an actual side by side soon. The mouth feel is much thinner, there is very little head. The beer smells really good and tasted good except for weirdly tart aftertaste that just doesn't seem right. Actually the only other time I've tried making an English beer I had the same problem (a mild ale). It seems to be somewhat common as I was able to find a few threads describing the same thing. With the Mild ale it mostly went away after a while I think.
I wish I had tasted more prior to bottling because I don't think this aftertaste was there but I had such a small amount to taste. I feel like it showed up post-bottle carbonation with the mild ale too. One think I noticed with the actual is a good amount of chocolate flavor, hard to believe they don't use chocolate malt in it. Also there is a huge difference with body, I think I'm gonna take a hyrdo read of the beer and compare it to mine, I bet it's higher.
