James Squires Malt Runner

[whitegoose]

Pours a brilliant brown with blood red highlights and a fine tan head

For me the visual aspects were the best bit by far.... reading the rest of your sales pitch makes we want to grab another 6 pack in the off chance I got mine from a dud carton/pallet... it was like it had all the life taken out of it

 

[Northside Novice]

nothing special out of the bottle that i had last night was expecting so much more. not a patch on other limited releases from malt shovel. i am still in love with their rum rebelion porter from a few years ago yum yum !!
Have read it is fantastic on tap, so may have to find and try befor it runs out

 

[thylacine]

Picked up a 6 pack today. While worth tasting (there were some nice Munich malt flavours), the bottles taste a bit oxidised (carboardy) and there is the distinctive (lack of) character obtained from the use of Tooheys yeast. It had potential and I can only imagine it would have been much better if brewed at Camperdown rather than at SAB Adelaide.

Malt Runner currently on tap at "Edgars" - Ainslie shopping centre. (as well as the Amber, Pilsner & Golden)

 

[Adro85]

As a beer appreciation n00b I quite liked it as it was something fairly different to anything I'd ever had before. However, I do agree with some of the comments here that the mouth feel was a little bit less impressive than I was expecting and I didn't really get a lot of cherry. I made sure to not let the bottles get too cold so I could taste and smell all the flavours and aromas but the cherry wasn't quite there. Oh well I still have 22 to go and I'm not dreading that by any stretch of the imagination!

 

[AussieJosh]

I picked up one today from the Tea Tree Gully drive through in Adelaide, Not a bad beer but i could only have one at a time

 

[Screwtop]

I found the Cherry character pretty intense! Didn't notice it was brewed with cherry at first and was baffled how they got so much cherry character in it. After reading the label, things made more sense.
Besides, when has JS ever really let go? Don't forget it's a subsidiary of a Japanese mega-brewer.

Tasted this after a palate cleanser tonight. Not beer day, but a mate called in so I poured him one and had a taste. Quite liked this dark lager, the use of sucrose (cherry syrup) is a great way to add some complexity and dryness to the finish.

Plan to drink the other 5 on Friday, looking forward to it!

Very nice!

Screwy

 

[mr_tyreman]

Picked up 2 slabs of this today at Dan's...

WOW!!!

Great Beer!


Edit: Spellink

 

[j1gsaw]

bought a few tonight actually, and hmmmm, its a bit hit n miss. Cant say i adore it, but certainly nice enough to have a few, would probably buy a carton.

 

[petesbrew]

Bought a 6pack of this at 1st Choice. It was in one of those cooled display units near the register, and seemed cool enough to have one when I got home.
Gotta say, I really enjoyed it. I'd be tempted to buy a slab.

 

[Dazza_devil]

Bought a 6pack of this at 1st Choice. It was in one of those cooled display units near the register, and seemed cool enough to have one when I got home.
Gotta say, I really enjoyed it. I'd be tempted to buy a slab.

If you weren' so far away I'd offer to go you halvees.
Not a bad drop if you don't try'n pick the shit out of it and judge it on what it isn't instead of enjoying it for what it is.

 

[DUANNE]

had a couple of these the other night, and gotta say not bad.i admittedly had a low expectation after this thread but really enjoyed the cherry ripe in the finish.my only complaint is i thought it was a bit thin in body but still good.

 

[petesbrew]

If you weren' so far away I'd offer to go you halvees.
Not a bad drop if you don't try'n pick the shit out of it and judge it on what it isn't instead of enjoying it for what it is.

Yeah Tassie's a bit far.
So does this actually have cherries in it? My impression after tasting it was, that it's just the flavours picked up, and described like a wine blurb... eg. "hint of cut grass and persimmon,"...etc.
Happily, I didn't get much cherry from it. I'm no fan of kreiks.

 

[jayse]

I found the cherry to be like the starburst chews or even a little cough syrup, clean enough beer but was a struggle to get through a six pack.

 

[whitegoose]

Sounds like there's a fair bit of variation in flavour in these beers...

 

[Dazza_devil]

Sounds like there's a fair bit of variation in flavour in these beers...

You could be right there whitegoose.
I don't like cherry that much and would find it to be offensive in a beer normally but I only detected a hint after consuming 2 or 3 of the samples that I had. Perhaps serving temp has got a little to do with it but you would think not that much.

 

[jayse]

I was also interested to hear the differences some are finding such as some saying the cherry is low to nil, I have found out a very juicy tid bid thanx to a acidental slip of the tongue why the stuff in S.A at least may have a tad different profile.
Not sure if its meant to be a company secret or not but i'll let you all put the pieces together yourselves.

 

[Noxious]

Hi all,
Bought a 6 pack of this a couple of weeks ago. Thought it was a nice change from my usual pale coloured beers.
Drank them all in no time so it couldn't be too syrup-laden as I don't go for cough syrup flavours.
After reading the bottle/forum and finding out about the cherry I drank the last one and it was only after the idea was planted in my mind about the cherry that I could really notice it.
But I don't claim to be a pro-taster at all, just drink many beers.
Cheers all

 

[Lord Raja Goomba I]

I tried a couple with the missus, who is an occasional drinker, and not a beer connoiseur (though she won't drink any old rubbish either). She has reasonably conservative tastes.

She liked it and could taste the cherry, but again it could be planted ideas. She liked it, though she hates cherry beers, like bellevue kreik, as well as other cherry non-alcoholic drinks like dr pepper (yes I know no cherry, but those that hate it complain it tastes like cough syrup), cherry coke and the like. Whereas I love all of the above.

I found it to be a nice dark, slightly thin beer - but good enough flavour and you don't feel like you drunk a loaf of bread afterward, which is occasionally an issue (and sometimes a plus point) of some dark beers.

I plan on making a dark beer with actual cherry syrup (but not in the vain of a bellevue kriek).

 

[Muggus]

Managed to find myself a 6 pack of this stuff on the weekend.

Drank most of them; had the first one at room temperature hoping this was some sort of "winter warmer", but at 5.2% it's gonna struggle to do any kind of warming, and after the first I felt its probably better served somewhat chilled.

From all the reviews i've heard (mostly good), I've gotta say i'm pretty disappointed with this beer.
It's dark, yeah cool, but not brown, more like a deep ruby, which kind of fits in with the whole "cherry" part, that i'll get to later...the pale foam gives me the impression that I shouldn't be expecting something particularly rich and roasted, which the label seems to allude to.
Aroma, also, doesn't give much away.
As many have mentioned, the body is quite lean, and this is probably what disappoints me the most. I was expecting a nice chewy, slightly sweet malt body, but its quite drying and shortlived on the palate.
The flavour, however, I didn't mind; some subtle cocoa-y malts and browned toast. Certainly not the rich chocolate I was expecting though.
And as for this cherry!? Where? Ok, sure, there's a hint of something that may be perceived as cherry on the finish, but I reckon you'd be better off not mentioning it and leaving it as some sort of complex yeast ester...or something...I dunno, but I had to look hard to find any cherries.

Anyway, that's my rant. To be perfectly honest, I didn't mind it, could probably have a session of it; reminds me a bit of the JS Porter or Tooheys old, sessionable dry dark ale, maybe not as dark as them though. My problem is they talked it up to be a different beer than what I tasted.

 

[bconnery]

I've tried it twice in the bottle and once on tap now and I've found the variance to be amazing.
The first time, in the bottle, I found it thin, no hint of cherry and an almost hint of infection like tang. Totally undrinkable.

I'd heard mixed reviews so I tried again on tap, especially as someone else paid for it, and didn't mind it. It wasnt a beer I'd rush to buy but it had some malt, a reasonable body and a hint of cherry flavouring, definitely flavouring came to mind rather than cherry.

Got a bottle in the recent Micro Beer club pack it it was much closer to the on tap version this time, but still lacking in body.

Overall I'd say, on tap being the best, that it still isn't a beer I'll rave about, but I've had a lot worse.
Mainly I'm not sure the dark lager and cherry juice combo was the best choice to me...

Certainly better than the Mad Brewer's Rasberry Wheat anyway :icon_vomit: