Originally published in What’s Brewing April 2003
Origin: Woodbastwick, Norfolk, England
ABV: 7 per cent
Buy from Specialist stockists, direct from the brewery (tel 01603 722218, www.woodfordes.co.uk)
Woodfordes Headcracker
East Anglia provides rich pickings for lovers of good speciality ales: the current Good Beer Guide lists 15 independent brewers in Suffolk and 11 in Norfolk, including a good number of award-winning names. Among these is Woodforde’s, perhaps best known for Wherry Best Bitter, a former Champion Beer of Britain, though in fact its most honoured beer is Headcracker, which in draught form recently won Champion Draught Barley Wine of Britain for the third time.
Wherry was Woodforde’s inaugural beer when the brewery was founded in 1981 at Drayton near Norwich by former homebrewers, who named it after an 18th century beer-loving Norfolk vicar. Since 1989 it’s been based at Woodbastwick, northeast of Norwich, on a site with its own water supply from a borehole. This pretty village in the Broads is much-visited by tourists, a market served by the brewery’s shop and visitor centre – and a range of its ales in bottle-conditioned form to take home. It also boasts three tied pubs.
Those familiar with Wherry won’t be surprised by the brewery’s take on a barley wine: Headcracker is also light in colour and notably hoppy for its style. The grist is almost entirely pale malt – Norfolk Maris Otter from Simpsons at nearby Tivetshall – with just a little caramalt. The result is an attractive golden colour, notably effervescent, and pours with a loose, foamy head. The heady aroma is instantly striking: full of peachy sherbet fruit and pungent spice, with the whiff of deeper, more earthy resins from Styrian Goldings hops.
The palate is tongue-tingling and slightly astringent, with a bitter-herbal, tea-tree oil-like character over an underlying slightly sweet malty body, and something of the vinous character appropriate to its style. Held in the mouth the beer becomes very warming, almost hot, while swallowing yields more hops and sherbety fruit salad. A deep, well-rounded resinous bitterness then slowly develops in the back of the mouth with a slight drying of the tongue and hints of sweetish nuttiness.
The name, with its encouragement to ABV-fixated headbanging, does the beer a disservice – though forward and uncompromising, this is overall a very elegant beer, inviting slow sipping with its refined malt palate, obvious alcohol and complex and distinctive but never aggressive hop flavours. And although officially given only six months of shelf life, it could also be laid down for much longer: I’d be interested to taste how it mellows with age.
Try also: Bush 7% (Belgium), Cottage Norman’s Conquest, Hogs Back A over T, Tegernsee Heller Bock (Germany)
Read more on ratebeer.com: http://www.ratebeer.com/beer/woodfordes-headcracker/18392/
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