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Medal-Winning Beers Buy the case, print-off this page, and compare your notes with ours! Harvey's, Extra Double Stout (England) (RP) This brilliant recreation of a 19th-century beer restores a lost style to drinkers when Courage stopped brewing Imperial Double Stout. Brewed with Maris Otter pale, amber, brown and black malts, and hopped with East Kent Goldings and Fuggles. It is bottle fermented, has a cork stopper and is matured for 12 months before release. It has a rich bouquet of vinous fruits, fresh leather, tobacco, smoky malt and peppery hops. Vinous fruits, hop resins, liquorice, roasted grain and bitter hops dominate the palate with a long and complex finish with warming alcohol, dark fruits, fresh tobacco, roasted grain and spicy hops to the fore. 9.0% ABV, 33cl. Cooper's, Vintage Ale 2006 (Australia) What a treat to try the latest release of Coopers legendary vintage ale, brewed with extended top fermentation. This is a beer made for cellaring, so it is a bit of infanticide to open one so young, but I have a few more tucked away for future enjoyment. Tesco have just named this beer as the 'Tesco Drinks Awards� Best Import' and limited stocks are in Tesco stores. It pours a dark, hazy toffee colour with a moderately persistent off-white head that is quite thick and creamy. The aromas are immediately malty and chocolaty, with a marmalade tang and plenty of infused caraway seed and liquorice notes. On the palate this thick, smooth beer coats the tongue in a sweet-edged rush of toffee and layered bittersweet flavour. The endive-like hoppy bite begins to assert towards the finish, playing against those chewy chocolate-coated caramel and plummy fruit flavours. A concentrated and intense beer that is already superb, but will be fascinating to taste over the years to come. 7.5% ABV, 37.5cl, �3.00, , Tesco. Boag's, Premium (Australia) This Tasmanian lager is aromatic, with hoppy and lightly malted notes, and a creaminess on the nose. That impression really follows through on the palate, which is quite thick-textured and very rich, with a rolling, milky quality, and only very gentle effervescence. Its flavours are clean and dry, with a nice bite on the finish, but this is a very gentle and grown-up style of beer that I really enjoyed. 5.0% ABV, 37.5cl, �28.50 for 24, Surf4beer. Weltenburger, Asam Bock (Germany) Weltenburger's Asam Bock is a doppelbock-style very dark beer, that is also strong at 6.9% ABV. It pours a really deep, rich, mahogany colour, with a huge, creamy cream-coloured head. The nose is deliciously inviting, with chocolate and coffee, deeply roasted cracked wheat notes and an impression of opulent, fruit-cake depth. On the palate this is thick and creamily textured, with a real sweetness to it. There are mouth-filling flavours and textures here, not just sweetness, but toffee and toasted bread, plummy fruit and a certain marmalade tang. The malty weight and breadth pillows beneath the whole picture here and yet, this beer retains plenty of freshness, with a bite of bitter hops coming though along with some tart acidity, to leap in and rescue the finish from becoming too sticky and sweet. A terrific beer. 6.9% ABV, 50cl, �1.95, Beersofeurope, .  24 bottle @ £48.50, including delivery Price includes delivery to UK mainland postcodes

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